9th Quirk User
by ThePrimeOne
Summary: Jotaro was a marine biologist, not a hero. He'd never taught anyone to fight, much less a bunch of heroes in training. So when he's asked to substitute a combat class for Aizawa's class 1-A, what better way to teach the class than getting your friends and colleagues to do it for you? Takes place after Part 4 and the Internship arc, with references to early and late Part 5.
1. Brand New Sun

Jotaro placed the telephone down on its housing, leaving him to contemplate the bizarre revelations brought to light Josuke's friend, Koichi.

"Giorno Giovanna… DIO's son and a stand user… how long has it been since I heard that name?" Jotaro mumbled, his eyes turning to the picture of the Stardust Crusaders in Egypt, a solemn smile stretching across his face before quickly falling back to a neutral position. "It always comes back to you, doesn't it, DIO?"

Brrrrrrr... Brrrrrrr…!

Jotaro's eyes snapped onto the ringing phone, grabbing the handset and placing it against his ear.

"Hello? This is Jotaro Kujo speaking."

" _Ah! Just the man I was hoping to hear!"_

For a split second, Jotaro's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh? This is certainly a surprise… and very much unlike you."

" _I suppose so,"_ the voice on the opposite end of the line answered, pausing for a few seconds before continuing. _"But, considering our current situation, it was best for me to contact you directly myself."_

The caller's last sentence made him shift in his seat, whether out of curiosity or discomfort, Jotaro wasn't sure. "And what would that be?"

" _I cannot disclose any details now, but what I can tell you is that as of two days ago, there was a large scale rescue operation to rescue a VIP held captive by the Yakuza. The operation was a success, but there were some… casualties and unexpected twists."_

Jotaro nodded, letting all the information he was being fed sink in. "I see. And what does this have to do with calling me?"

" _Well, one of our teachers, Shouta Aizawa, or Eraserhead as he's otherwise known- was involved in the operation, and unfortunately was put out of commission for two weeks. Consequently, the class that was scheduled to take place with class 1-A and 1-B was indefinitely put on the backburner. That is, unless you're willing to substitute a class for Aizawa."_

Recognising the quirk erasing hero's alias, Jotaro raised an eyebrow at the mention of the mutual acquaintances' name. "Don't you have other teachers that could substitute instead? Or other heroes for that matter?"

" _Do you not want to do it?"_ the caller asked in reply, not wanting to answer Jotaro's question.

"Not necessarily. Just curious as to why you came to ask me of all people."

" _That's understandable,"_ the caller said, nodding his head. _"Due to the Yakuza being dismantled, other local gangs are on the rise trying to establish possession of the Yazuka's territory. As such, many heroes have been called to temper these gang's advancements. In fact, one of our 3rd-year teachers responded to the call. Even a large institution like ours can become low on teaching staff with multiple scheduling conflicts."_

Jotaro hummed in agreement, seeing similar situations happening at multiple different institutes he had the opportunity to lecture at. "So, if I were to hypothetically accept your offer, what would I specifically be doing? Keeping one of either class A or B in check during the combined lesson?"

" _Ah, no, no, I should have been more specific. The combined class was pushed back. You'll merely be taking class A for their 3rd and 4th periods; focusing on combat simulations. Should you choose to accept, you can pick whatever simulation you like; of course, so long as you don't put the students near death, or worse. After all, despite being a marine biologist you've fought some rather… bizarre battles in your lifetime, so I'm sure you know when and where to draw the line."_

Jotaro smirked, recalling the events of the past year. "You don't even know half of it."

" _Oh?"_ the caller responded with surprise. _"I was under the impression you had told me of all your spectacular stories, especially the ones from ten years ago."_

" _Eleven,"_ Jotaro said swiftly. But rest assured, I'll tell you the rest should time allow it."

" _So you'll accept?"_

Jotaro pursed his lips in thought. "You've become more persistent since we last talked, you know that?" the stand user bluntly responded.

" _Sometimes it's necessary part of being someone of my position,"_ the caller retorted with a small chuckle.

"Fair enough… when does the class commence?"

" _Tuesday next week!"_ the caller responded excitedly.

Jotaro hummed in acknowledgment. "Tuesday in one week it is then. I'll be sure to sit and have tea with you if you wish."

" _That would be splendid! I'll see you next week then, Jotaro?"_

"Next week," Jotaro confirmed. "See you then, Nezu."

Jotaro placed the phone down, cutting off the call between him and the principal of U.A High. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the furthest wall in his office.

" _This ought to be a good experience for me in the long run. I've never had much experience with teaching in a practical, hands-on sense… just mostly lectures and the sort."_

Jotaro picked the phone back up, his head lighting up with an idea as he quickly punched in a collection of numbers on the phone's number pad. The phone rang twice before someone picked up the phone.

"Tomoko Higashikata speaking!" the feminine voice said energetically.

" _Tomoko, it's me."_

"Oh! Jotaro!" Tomoko said in surprise. "This is unexpected, what seems to be the matter- Ah!" she gasped suddenly, leaving the opposite end of the line silent.

" _Tomoko?"_

Jotaro attempted to follow up his concerned question, stopping before the mother of Josuke giggled. "Stop, that tickles- OH!" she moaned, a loud slap suddenly emanating from the phone's speaker.

"Ah, sorry about that Jotaro, I-"

"…Am well aware of what's going on. I need to speak to him," he responded in a stoic voice.

"Oh, so you know? This must be the worst kept secret in all of Morioh then. He's here," she said quickly, passing it to another person.

" _Jotaro? What's up? Your office isn't that far away from the house you know."_

"I know, but I have rather urgent news, and a request to make. Do you have time to spare a week from now?."

* * *

The week quickly flew by, and within a blink of an eye, Jotaro stepped foot into the main building of U.A. Making his way to the front reception, he double-checked the time.

" _9:30,"_ he read out in his head. _"Plenty of time to spare."_

"How may I help you sir?" the receptionist asked politely, pulling Jotaro's eyes from the wall clock to the woman in front of him.

"Nezu has an appointment with me within 10 minutes, just checking in early."

The small woman tilted her head in confusion, quickly looking through a bunch of papers and calendars out across the desk.

After a few moments, the receptionist nodded in approval. "It would seem you're right! My apologies for doubting you. Take that elevator just to your right up to the 5the floor and the Principal's office should be a few doors down to your right.

Silently nodding his head in thanks, Jotaro tore his attention from the receptionist and to the elevator, soon knocking on the door to Nezu's office. If Jotaro were honest, the rodent, bless his soul, had the often-unfortunate tendency to have long-winded conversations, especially regarding hero-related topics.

The door swung open to reveal a much smaller, animalistic figure, standing with a large smile on his face. "Good day Jotaro! Come in, come in!" he enthusiastically insisted, stepping to the side to let the larger man in. Sitting on one of the couches in Jotaro quickly swiped at the steaming tea to take a sip.

"Excellent taste in tea as always, Nezu," Jotaro complimented the rodent.

Nezu chuckled at the compliment. "Why thank you, good sir! But enough about me. You must tell me about these adventures of yours you mentioned while we last talked… I'm dying to hear just how bizarre they are!"

Jotaro suppressed a chuckle, sipping some more tea before setting down the cup, telling the principal of U.A of the events during the summer of Morioh just a year prior. Nezu was an avid of storytelling, becoming quite clear with his outburst of excitement during the climax of the first part of the Morioh saga.

"And this, 'Yoshikage Kira' character… what happened to him?"

Jotaro smirked. "Perhaps I'll tell you, if you tell me of what happened during the rescue operation two days ago.

Nezu tossed his head back in laughter. "Oh, you sneaky man, Jotaro! I knew you'd ask something like this… but anyway, since I want to hear more about your story, I suppose I'll have to tell you some of what happened.

The two were soon lost in conversation, proving to be very… insightful, considering Jotaro had a previous run-in with a stand user working for the Yakuza.

Jotaro opened his mouth to ask a question promptly shutting it closed as his eyes landed on the wall clock on the wall behind Nezu.

10:45

Jotaro was late.

Quickly standing up he bowed towards the principal, much to his confusion.

"It would seem that I'm late for class… give me a break."

"Oh! So it would seem… my deepest apologies for keeping you from being punctual to class," Nezu replied, pushing himself quickly towards the door and opening it for Jotaro.

"Do you need a reminder of where to go?" Nezu asked the stand user politely, following him out the door, to which Jotaro shook his head.

"It's not my first time being here, as you may recall. It was class 1-A, correct?"

Nezu nodded. "Correct! And good luck with the class!" Nezu said cheerily, waving at Jotaro as the taller man turned his back and walked down the corridor.

"You're going to need it," Nezu uttered. "Especially with that rowdy bunch of characters that are class 1-A.

Within a few minutes, the white-clad stand user found himself in front of a large door labeled '1-A'. Jotaro pulled back his sleeve to look down at his watch.

10:47

Seven minutes late. He shook his head in annoyance.

"Good grief."

Gripping the handle to the absurdly large door, he swung it open, the noise that was once heard on the other side of the door suddenly dying down in an instant. Jotaro raised an eyebrow. Was this the effect Aizawa had in his class?

Jotaro only hoped he could maintain the colorful class as effectively as the quirk erasing hero could.

The rowdiness of class 1-A was something to not be underestimated by anyone, despite how well behaved (most of) the class was in the presence of Aizawa. The moment Jotaro stepped into the room, his presence elicited confused murmurs amongst the class.

"Huh... who's that?" Mineta said with a hint of disappointment.

Momo tilted her head in thought. "Where have I seen him before…?"

Kirishima's eyes almost bulged out of his head. "Holy crap, talk about tall! Even taller than Iida! He's got a manly air about him too…"

"What an odd outfit, ribbit," Tsuyu spoke aloud.

Izuku was the most confused of all; swimming through the seemingly infinite amount of information his brain contained of various heroes, and yet still couldn't identify the man in front of them.

The man placed the papers on the front podium, pulling a pen out from his pocket.

"In case you somehow live under a rock, your teacher who was going to take you today, Aizawa, is currently… out of commission," Jotaro spoke, causing four particular students to wince. "Because of other teachers having clashes with today's class, I was brought in to take over for these two lessons."

The class simply nodded in acknowledgment upon hearing the news, seeing as their homeroom teacher was taking a small leave of absence, much to his chagrin.

"And before we continue, my name is Jotaro Kujo, but you may call me Mr. Kujo. Now I'll be calling out your names one by one, so put your hand up or say 'here' so I can mark you off…"

Jotaro began to mark off each of class A one by one, not noticing a small conversation brewing in the corner of the classroom.

"Jotaro… Kujo?" Momo whispered, her eyes widening.

"Something the matter, Yaoyorozu?"

Momo snapped out of her daze and looked at the source of the voice, looking away almost immediately when she locked eyes with Todoroki.

"Ah, yeah, I just realised something, that's all…"

"You mind sharing?" Mineta asked curiously, turning towards the pair, Todoroki leaning in to hear what she had to say.

"W-well, you see, if I'm correct in my assumption, it would seem that our substitute teacher isn't a hero, in fact, his profession is about as far as you can get from it. He's a marine biologist."

"What?!" Mineta muttered a little too loudly, earning him some odd stares from his classmates. "He's a _marine biologist_? And he's supposed to be running combat simulations with us today? Absolute madman-"

"The only madman here is you- and the fact you're needlessly distracting the class."

Mineta spun around to see the tall stand user overlooking his desk, falling back and off his chair in sudden surprise. Giggles would have erupted from all corners of the room at his blunder, had the substitute teacher not suddenly appear from one end of the room to the other in an instant.

"Ah, Mr. Kujo! How are we doing today?" Mineta awkwardly chuckled as he got back on his seat.

"Just fine, thank you. Now, your name is Mineta, yes? Minoru Mineta?"

The grape boy cleared his throat. "Y-yes, sir."

Jotaro ticked a box next to his name and continued to mark down the rest of the class, every student of class A in attendance.

"Alright. Now that I've confirmed everyone's here, go get suited up and head down to Ground Alpha. You've got 5 minutes."

"Excuse me, Mr. Kujo, sir!" a loud voice erupted from the front of the classroom, a tall boy standing up and waving his hands as he introduced himself.

"Tenya Iida was it?"

"Yes, sir! A quick inquiry; normally we are expected to come to this class in our gym uniform, but since Aizawa is not here to enforce the said rule, are we allowed to come in out hero costumes?"

Jotaro shrugged. "Take your pick, I'm not fussed. And remember, five minutes, ground alpha," he told them sternly.

"And if we don't?"

Jotaro turned back to the new masculine voice that spoke up, Jotaro eyeing a boy with ashy blond hair.

"What was that… Bakugo?"

"And if we don't?" the boy repeated with a look of annoyance on his face. "You're no hero, just some dumb marine biologist… what good are you going to do to help us become better heroes? Or are you going to teach us how to screw someone with a dolphin quirk?"

Jotaro's eyes squinted as multiple students suppressed gasps and giggles. "I have the principal on speed dial, should anyone not be willing to listen."

Bakugo howled with laughter. "Right! And that's supposed to scare me how?!"

Jotaro shook his head, realising the rude boy didn't believe him. Taking out his phone, he scrolled through the contacts, pressing 'call' against Nezu's name. Clicking 'speaker', he held out the phone in front of him as the phone's ringing began to fill the classroom.

Brrrrrrr... Brrrrrrr…!

" _Jotaro! What a surprise! I certainly didn't expect you to call during class!"_ Nezu spoke in a happy tone. The voice that emerged from phone caused simultaneous shocks of surprise to emanate from the mouths of class A; bar Bakugo, who gritted his teeth.

"Nezu. Should any students be… misbehaving, I am to report them to you directly, correct?"

" _Oh yes, indeed. If any students are misbehaving, report any incidents to me and appropriate punishments shall be given out. Why ask? Is there someone misbehaving?"_

Jotaro looked at Bakugo who was audibly grinding his teeth, causing a small smirk to form on Jotaro's face.

"No, in fact, they're quite well behaved. I was just curious should anything change."

" _Ah, that's understandable. Best of luck with the rest of the class!"_

"Thank you, Nezu," Jotaro said, disconnecting the call from U.A High's principal.

"Five minutes, ground alpha," he repeated for the third time, turning his back, walking out the door and closing it behind him.

Scrolling through his phone's contacts list, he quickly dialed a number, the receiver of the call responding almost immediately.

"Did you find it? Ground alpha?"

" _It took us some time, but yes, we found it."_

"Good to hear. Sit tight, you've got a whole class of heroes-in-training coming your way, and you'll need all the luck you can get."

" _Ah, come now Jotaro! It won't be that bad, surely!"_

"Good luck," Jotaro said simply, hanging up and quickly making his way to ground alpha.

As expected, Class A had congregated at Ground Alpha within the 5 minutes Jotaro had given them. Ground Alpha itself was extremely mundane in comparison to its other counterparts. The ground itself looked more akin to a small neighbourhood street with eight large houses and apartment buildings, four on each side of the street.

Turning towards the class gathered before him, Jotaro cleared his throat.

"As you know, today we'll be focusing on combat training. Unfortunately, because of how last minute the request to cover for this class was, we'll be drawing lots out of this box," the stand user spoke, holding up a box of sticks.

"Drawing a short stick from this box will result in compulsory participation in this exercise," Jotaro explained, causing a few students to simultaneously sigh in relief and shift uncomfortably in place.

A hand shot up from the back of the group, catching Jotaro's attention. "Um, excuse me Mr. Kujo? What is the exercise going to be about exactly?"

Holding out the box expectedly towards Iida, Jotaro passed off to the class president, the class beginning to quickly drain the box of the sticks. Once the box was returned to him, Jotaro turned towards the questioning brunette.

"Before I answer your question, anyone who drew short sticks, immediately separate from the larger group." Doing as Jotaro commanded, six people began to make their own group to the right of the rest of class A.

Jotaro's mind wandered back to five minutes before, making sure to remember their names: Mina Ashido, Tsuyu Asui, Ochaco Uraraka, Denki Kaminari, Eijiro Kirishima, Mezo Shoji, Kyoka Jiro, Fumikage Tokoyami, Katsuki Bakugo, Izuku Midoriya, Shouto Todoroki, Momo Yaoyorozu.

Jotaro wondered if it really mattered if he learnt the names of the class A students. It's not like he'd be back after the double lesson.

"Now to finally answer your question, Uraraka, the remaining students required to participate will be facing in a 2 versus 1 duel with some friends and colleagues of mine; with rules of course. First of all, killing or fatally wounding another student or person is strictly prohibited. I'd rather not leave here today with having to sign endless paperwork explain why students thought it'd be fun to kill each other. Secondly, fights are ultimately decided when either side blacks out or admits defeat."

"Wait, so can we can pick who we pair with?" Mineta exclaimed excitedly, edging towards Momo, much to the annoyance of class A. "Aw hell yeah-"

Luckily, Jotaro shook his head. "No. Thirdly, you shall not pick anyone to partner up with. You'll be paired to fight at the discretion of each potential opponent."

A hand went up from Tsuyu. "Mr. Kujo? What's exactly the point of today's exercises?"

"Primarily three aspects of combat: teamwork, using your abilities in unique and interesting ways, and how to fight opponents who use said unconventional tactics to fight. Not every villain you face will be stupid enough to gamble with the most obvious and straightforward option in a fight. Speaking of… it would seem it's about time," Jotaro trailed off, 4 men and a dog appearing seemingly out of thin air.

One of them took a step forward, pointing towards Tokoyami and Kaminari.

"You two shall be my two opponents," the man said, pointing a finger at them, causing Kaminari to sigh in frustration, while Tokoyami simply nodded. Jotaro directed the group away to the control center for ground alpha, offering the class a look at a variety of angles of which the first battle would take place. Jotaro placed the microphone near his mouth.

" _Are the fighter's ready?"_

All three nodded before Tokoyami spoke to the man standing across from them.

"Are you going to introduce yourself, or do you wish to remain anonymous?"

The man chuckled, taking his sunglasses off his face. "Ah, that's what I forgot to do! I forgot to introduce myself. Please forgive me, I really am quite excited," he said as a green, humanoid-like figure began to slowly appear beside him, causing his opponents to flinch back in surprise.

"My name is Noriaki Kakyoin and this is my stand Hierophant Green… and I shall be taking the first win of the day!"

" _START!"  
_

* * *

Surprise! If you didn't already make the connection before reaching the end, this story also takes place after the events of the 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven' game for PS3 and PS4, because that ending not only warms my heart, but is the best Jojo universe/timeline.

Stat pages:

Hierophant Green

Destructive Power: B

Speed:B

Range: A

Durability:C

Precision: B

Developmental Potential: E

A humanoid stand with robotic features. Allows Kakyoin to fight at long distances with the 'Emerald Splash', Hierophant green now able to fire off two smaller shots at once from each hand. His stand can also untangle itself into smaller membranes and can also control a person by untangling itself and climbing into a target, though Kakyoin rarely uses this ability.

Electrification

Destructive Power: A

Speed: C

Range: D (B when using the shooters provided by Mei)

Durability:D

Precision: E (C, see range)

Developmental Potential:C

Allows Kaminari to create a protective aura of electricity around him, electrifying anyone through contact. When reaching a certain limit, the electricity dispels itself into all directions, shocking anyone close to him. Despite its incredible power, Kaminari has shown little control of his quirk on his own, cannot easily aim where his electricity goes, and as such, relies on a gauntlet created by Mei Hatsume to efficiently guide and aim his attacks. Over exceeding his wattage limit also short-circuits his brain for a short period of time.

Dark Shadow

Destructive Power: D (A at night or in the dark)

Speed: C (B, ")

Range: B (A, ")

Durability: D (A, ")

Precision:C (E, ")

Developmental Potential: C

Acts very similarly to a stand, allowing Tokoyami to host a "shadow-like monster" that he can materialise from his body. The monster itself, aptly named 'Dark Shadow', is sentient and capable of speech, and can be used for a variety of offensive, defensive options, as well as allowing for good mobility and support. Dark shadow also gains immense strength in dark surroundings, to the point where Tokoyami can easily lose control of Dark Shadow itself. As such, quirks that emit any sort of light prove very effective against Dark Shadow, weakening Dark Shadow to the point where his strength is that of a small cockroach. Tokoyami's emotions have also been seen to have a connection to Dark Shadow, Tokoyami's anger letting loose his control of Dark Shadow during the attack on Class 1 at the forest lodge.


	2. Hunter

Kaminari's face faltered. "Wait, what did he say? Stand? What is he talking about?"

Tokoyami shrugged. "No idea. I've never heard of anything of the sort before… but whatever it is, it probably means he's serious business."

Back in the control room, confused murmurs broke out amongst the class A students, much to the amusement of the five stand users who stood in the back of the room. "Wait… what did he say?" Izuku mumbled as he pulled out a notepad and started scribbling notes. "Stand?"

"That's right… a stand."

"What's that supposed to be? A special type of quirk?" Tsuyu asked aloud, her finger pressed up against her chin.

Jotaro shook his head. "Unlike quirks, which manifest due to biological and physical means, Stands are the personification of one's life energy or fighting spirit given visual form. Because of this, harming the stand in one place also does the same damage to the user in the same place. Though there is a noticeable link between having a quirk and a stand."

"Oh? How so? And how many of these stand users exist?" a curious Momo asked from the left of Tsuyu.

"Not many, since the general rule for becoming a stand user is being quirkless. No ones' sure as to how the phenomena interact with each other... not even I'm sure as to why this is the case. Of course, when I say 'generally', I mean there are two exceptions to the rule, making the interactions between quirks and stands more mysterious."

"Was the really necessary, Jotaro?" a voice called out from across the room, his flat top silver hair making him stick out like a sore thumb. "Did you have to tell them about the whole 'harming the stand hurts us' thing?"

"It'll keep you on your toes, Polnareff. It ought to make for good practice too, especially since you haven't fought after your escape from Italy."

The silver-haired stand user shrugged. "I suppose so," not willing to pick a verbal fight against Jotaro, turning his head to the screen as the fight began with Dark Shadow lunging at Kakyoin.

"Another stand user…?" Polnareff mumbled.

"No," Izuku said, correcting Polnareff. "It's definitely a quirk. When Dark Shadow gets hurt, Tokoyami doesn't suffer the same wounds and pain as Dark Shadow does… he does lose some stamina though."

"Good catch… case in point," Jotaro said, looking at the screen.

"Get back!" Kakyoin exclaimed, swiping a fist at Dark Shadow, pushing the shadowy being a few meters, Kakyoin leaping back to make space between his opponents.

"Let's go Hierophant Green!" Kakyoin exclaimed, his stand placing one hand above another, green slime swirling between them.

"EMERALD SPLASH!"

"Kaminari, move!"

Without a second thought, the blond followed his partner's orders, the duo jumping to opposite sides of the street as eight emeralds flew past the duo.

"Ok, he's serious business!" Kaminari panicked as he aimed the shooter on his right arm at Kakyoin.

"Kaminari, wait!"

Before Denki could react, Kakyoin's stand had unwound half of its body, stretching its body forward and its arms to the side, planting itself on the ground.

"Double emerald splash!" Kakyoin exclaimed as four emeralds burst out of Hierophant Green's hands, Tokoyami swiftly dodging the projectiles. Meanwhile, Kaminari barely had time to duck, the emeralds taking off small parts of his hair.

"Ah, dammit! Now my hair looks weird…"

"Stay focused Kaminari! Go Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami exclaimed, ordering his dark double to attack Kakyoin with a swift claw slash to the stand's face. Unfortunately for the duo, Kakyoin predicted the incoming attack and retracted Hierophant Green into its base form.

"You'll have to be much faster than that to catch me!" Kakyoin exclaimed as appendages from within Hierophant Green sprouted out and began to chase after his opponents.

"Dark Shadow, deflect!" Tokoyami roared, Dark Shadow doing as he commanded without fail, swiping away at Hierophant Green's appendages, his electric partner not having such luck as the stand's membranes wrapped themselves around the blond. Tokoyami clicked his tongue in frustration, Dark Shadow being pushed back towards its host, struggling to stay on the defensive.

"Dark Shadow, grab the tentacle!"

Without fail, Dark Shadow grabbed on to Hierophant Green's membranes, two in each hand. Before his host could speak, Dark Shadow violently pulled back on the membranes pulling Kakyoin towards the shadowy being; Tokoyami cracking a small smile as he moved closer towards Kakyoin's flying body.

"Don't hold back, Dark Shadow!"

"HELL YEAH!" the shadowy quirk roared as he pulled back his head, intending to ram it into Kakyoin's own.

"T-Tokoyami! Look out!"

The boy's beady eyes snapped onto Kaminari, whose stoic face cracked at the mention of his name. Without realizing what happened, Kaminari slammed into Tokoyami, sending the duo flying back towards the front door of one of the nearby houses. The duo groaned in pain, simultaneously gripping their heads as Kakyoin slowly walked towards the fallen team.

"I will admit, using my membranes to pull me in for a hit was a good idea, but your situational awareness could be a little better. Had you seen my Hierophant Green's attempt to use your friend as a projectile, like had expected you to, I'd probably be struggling to get my face off the floor."

Tokoyami nodded in acknowledgment, standing up to face Kakyoin once more, he gritted his teeth.

"So, do you surrender? I'm giving you an out here, so you better make good use of it," the stand user asked sincerely, his stand preparing an emerald splash above his host.

"H-Hell no…"

Kakyoin and Tokoyami's heads looked towards a tired Kaminari who stood to his feet.

"Like hell we're giving up! In fact, you fell right into our trap!" Kaminari bragged, Kakyoin raising a suspicious eyebrow.

"Oh? And what would that be?"

Kaminari smirked. "You're within my range, that's what."

Before Kakyoin could react, Kaminari formed a finger gun and pointed at Kakyoin, sending a wave of electricity through to a pointer he had shot onto Hierophant Green's shoulder.

" **GRRAH**!" Kakyoin bellowed in pain as electricity flowed through his body, temporarily paralyzing him.

"Tokoyami! Now!"

Without a second thought, Dark Shadow reappeared and sunk onto Tokoyami's body, an angry "Black Ankh!" emerging from the host's mouth. Without hesitation, Tokoyami pointed forward as an enlarged dark claw slammed into Kakyoin's stomach.

"Take this! Piercing Claw of the Dusk!"

Kakyoin felt himself flying back and in the air, an odd sense of déjà vu overcoming him, allowing for Tokoyami to direct a shadowy uppercut to his stomach again, sending him high into the air.

"This reminds me too much of Cairo…" Kakyoin mumbled as felt his body fall back towards the ground.

"Yes! We got him good Tokoyami!" Kaminari cheered.

The bird-headed boy nodded with a small smile. "It would seem we've turned the tide of the battle in our favour, at least for now." What Tokoyami couldn't have predicted, was how long that would last for.

And as he would find out, it was not long.

Kakyoin, waking up out and out of his daze, flipped himself over so he would land feet first, his stand manifesting once again.

"Quickly, let's go… get, him?" Kaminari spoke out as the two approached Kakyoin, who was seemingly floating in the air.

"Oh come on! Is there anything that thing can't do?!" Kaminari burst out in frustration. "And now you're floating in the air?!"

"No… not quite," Tokyami said pointing to the older man's shoes. "Look underneath his shoes. He's not floating, he's standing on something!" Kaminari looked below Kakyoin's shoes, and lo and behold, a thin green wire that stretched out between the two houses on the opposite sides of the street was strung out in the open, allowing Kakyoin to easily give off the illusion he was floating.

Kakyoing clapped his hands upon hearing Tokoyami's quick deduction. "See? Now that is what I want to see, but more so in battle than when we're standing around not fighting. Now, take this!" Kakayoin yelled as Hierophant Green's upper body floated above them as a green slimy material was generated between its hands.

"EMERALD SPLASH!"

"Tokoyami!" Kaminari screamed in panic.

"I got it!" he reassured him, holding up a hand covered by Dark Shadow, thrusting it forward quickly to deflect the emerald splash.

"Emerald Splash!"

The second wave of emeralds came flying to their right Tokoyami push Kaminari to the ground as the emeralds broke down a part of the front entrance to one of the apartment buildings nearby.

"Hey Tokoyami, look," the electric quirk user whispered, pointing to the entrance of the building. "Why don't we lose him in there? At this rate, we're going to lose if we stay out here."

Tokoyami nodded. "A sound idea Kaminari. Dark Shadow, you know what to do."

"Alright, alright, I got you! Relax!" Dark Shadow replied as he shot out an enlarged fist towards the door, breaking it down and grabbing on to the framing. With the opposite hand, Tokoyami grabbed Kaminari by the arm, pulling him along the ground as Dark Shadow retracted his arm, pulling both of the boys towards the door.

"Stop right there! Emerald Splash!" Kakyoin bellowed, firing eight emeralds at the heroes in training, the emeralds mostly missing their targets, bar two that hit Kaminari's ankle and Tokoyami's wrists. Kaminari suppressed a groan in pain as he was dragged into the apartment building.

"Ah crap! He hit my ankle!" Kaminari cursed out as Dark Shadow dragged his body towards the stairs.

"The hell he did!" Dark Shadow angrily replied, his form beginning to twitch. "Let's go kick his ass, Tokoyami!" Dark Shadow said irritably, to which his host simply shook his head in disapproval.

"No, we cannot. The building's gone totally dark. If we wait here, in the dark, the likelihood of you going berserk again is dangerously high, and a chance I'm not willing to take."

Kaminari's eyes widened to the point where they almost bulged out of his head. "A-are you serious?! Where can we go if not here?!" He asked with panic laden in his voice, following Tokoyami's finger pointing towards the roof.

"We go up, where there's light. If we get to the top in time, we can ambush him when he follows us to the top."

Kaminari nodded and sighed. "Yeah, you're right. That definitely seems like our best option right now. So how do I get up? It's kind of hard with my ankle in shambles."

Tokoyami smiled as Dark Shadow gently warped a claw around him. "Dark Shadow can take you. Now, let's go!" He exclaimed with an edge of determination, Dark Shadow cheering on as the group climbed to the top of the building.

Meanwhile, Kakyoin simply stood idly by, thinking of what to do next, watching Hierophant Green slowly unravel itself.

"What to do, I wonder? They seem to be traveling up the apartment building quite rapidly. Let's so how they react when I force them to stop…"

"Hrk!" Dark Shadow grunted as he attempted to pull Kaminari up.

"Dark Shadow! What's wrong?!" Tokoyami asked in alarm.

"M-my arm! It's stuck! I can't move it…"

The host looked down but was unable to see anything out of place. "Do you see anything out of the ordinary, Kaminari?"

The electric quirk user observed his immediate surroundings but was unable to find anything that was impeding their advance. He opened his mouth to speak but immediately shut it when an idea hit him. Raising his hand up, small sparks appeared, bouncing off his hand, causing Kaminari's eyes to widen in surprise. He performed the same action again, seeing… something above him… a wire?

"OI! Don't do that again! You know light makes me weak you asshole!" Dark Shadow screeched at Kaminari, who simply ignored his angry spout.

"Give it a break will ya? I think I found something, but I need you to relax for a moment and let me concentrate," he retorted back, Dark Shadow responding with an annoyed huff.

Bzzzt!

"There! I see something… but I can't tell what it's supposed to be…"

Kaminari brought his hand closer to Dark Shadow's arm, his hand sparking to life again, eliciting a growl from Dark Shadow.

"There it is! I see it! It's one of those membranes! That Kakyoin guy somehow made it follow us up here! It's lodged right in Dark Shadow's arm!"

Tokoyami clicked his tongue, grabbing both of his hands on to the handrails of the nearest stairwell. "Dark shadow! Get rid of that membrane, now!"

"You got it, boss!" Dark Shadow exclaimed excitedly, his right claw reaching down towards the membrane and swiping its claw downwards, nearly hitting Kaminari in the face.

"H-hey! Watch where you're trying to attack, man!"

"Whatever- hey, I missed! What the hell?"

Kaminari's eyes widened, sparking his hand to find the membrane that was once lodged into Dark Shadow's arm, sink away into the darkness below.

"Don't worry it's gone! It must have sensed you were trying to attack it! Quick! Pull me up!"

Not wanting to deal with paralyzed limbs and longer, Dark Shadow pulled up Kaminari to the next level of the building's stairwell as they made their way to the top.

Kakyoin looked up from the bottom floor and rubbed his chin. "Heh. They're getting better, that's for sure. I definitely didn't expect them to figure it out so quickly," he praised in a low whisper.

"But, it would seem I'm still a step ahead," Kakyoin chuckled, Hierophant Green slowly unraveling itself.

Meanwhile, the duo stumbled out the door that lead to the roof, slamming the metallic door shut behind them.

"Okay, now all we need to do is wait for him to come up here and we can ambush him. There's no way he wouldn't. He'd have to be following us in order to catch us out like he did with the membrane trick. There's no other way for him to see us in that much dark."

Tokoyami cautiously nodded, an odd feeling of dread overcoming him. "While that may be true, I get the feeling there's more to his abilities than we realize. If he can make those tentacle things and fire emeralds at us, who knows what else he could do…"

"I suppose so-"

"Kaminari move!"

"Huh?"

Before he could process what was happening, Tokoyami suddenly shoved Kaminari to the side, his cheek running up against the concrete; a loud slam emanated from the door nearby.

"T-Tokoyami?"

"He-he's here Kaminari, look…!"

Kaminari didn't need to see where his bird-like friend was pointing to realize where the sudden attack had come from.

"D-Dammit! How did you get here already?!"

Kakyoin responded with a low chuckle as he stepped off one of Hierophant's tentacles and onto the roof. "My stand has many abilities that are extremely powerful when used effectively. Of course, me getting up here was just one of them," the redhead said looking at Tokoyami.

"Well, it would seem your friend is out for the count, and my stand has you backed into a corner. What shall you do now? The enemy is standing in front of you, your comrade is down and you're the only one left standing. Do you surrender? Well, I suppose there's no point in asking such a question is there? Your resolve has disappeared! You're nothing but an empty shell of a hero!"

Kaminari gritted his teeth as he limped towards Tokoyami.

"No… hell no!" Kaminari retorted, much to the surprise of Kakyoin. "Don't think I'm giving up now!" Kaminari spat at the man in green.

"And there it is! After the villain begins taunting the hero, their resolve becomes renewed! How cliché!" Kakyoin howled in amusement, his stand preparing another emerald splash. "Well, hero?! What shall it be?!"

Kaminari turned his back to the man in green, much to Kakyoin's confusion.

"You wanted me to show you my 'resolve'? Fine… I'll show you!" Raising his hand in the air, his hand began to violently spark, punching Tokoyami's seemingly unconscious body. The resulting shock forced Tokoyami's eyes open, bringing him back to a conscious state, which resulted in the manifesting of a very angry Dark Shadow.

"GET THE HELL OFF OF ME!" Dark Shadow screeched in anger, slamming a fist into his chest sending him flying into Kakyoin and off the side of the building.

"K-KAMINARI!" Tokoyami yelped, seeing his partner fall to what he assumed was his death, pushing his aching body off the ground and rushing to the edge of the rooftop. "What the hell were you thinking Dark Shadow?"

"He zapped us with all that electricity! It hurt dammit!"

"But you didn't need to hit him… like… that," Tokoyami trailed off, trying to process what he was seeing. Kaminari, somehow, had managed to not only knock down their opponent from the rooftop but also landed clumsily on Hierophant Green's membranes that Kakyoin utilized as platforms to reach the rooftop. Holding up his shooter, Kaminari fired multiple pointers down towards Kakyoin, the stand user using Hierophant Green's membranes to swing down towards the ground and land safely.

"Heh. To think he'd harm his own self to turn the tables on me like this," Kakyoin spoke softly, dodging more pointers, landing behind him. Recalling his stand back to its normal state, the membranes began to loosen, Kaminari losing his foot as the platform underneath him disappeared.

"Oh crap!" he cried, before being swooped up by Dark Shadow, guiding the duo to the ground in one piece.

"You okay Kaminari?"

The blond nodded, pressing the weight of his body on his right side. "Yeah, for now, I am. Sorry about what I did before by the way. I couldn't think of any way to- GAH!"

Kaminari's explanation was cut short as Hierophant Green wrapped itself around the electric quirk user, pulling him away from his partner.

"Damn! Not again!" Tokoyami groaned in annoyance. "He's persistent, that's for sure. That 'stand' thing is awfully similar to my Dark Shadow. Perhaps it's power and permanence is linked to his stamina…?"

"Dammit Tokoyami, stop lecturing to yourself and help me out here!"

Tokoyami shook his head from his daze, quickly responding with: "Right!" The bird-faced boy attempted to rush him down but stopping before he could lift a foot, Kakyoin's stand hovered its hands behind his partner's head.

"Don't move an inch," Kakyoin said menacingly, threatening to attack Kaminari. "Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way?"

"What does the easy way entail? Tokoyami asked, sweat beginning to form on his head.

"Your immediate surrender. If you choose not to… well, you can already guess what will happen," Kakyoin smirked, looking down at the younger male.

" _Great… what do I do? If I attack, Kaminari will get hurt, if I don't, we lose… and I rather not get a report back to Aizawa that we lost in a 2vs1 duel of all things_ ," Tokoyami thought, shivering at the thought of Aizawa doling out punishments for… subpar performance.

"Don't worry my friend, I got this," Kaminari suddenly spoke up winking at the bird boy. It took him until sparks began to appear around Kaminari and the membrane what he was attempting to do.

"Take this! Indiscriminate…!"

"Kaminari, don't!"

The blond stopped himself and smirked "Just joking!" the electric blond cried out, sticking out his shoe, angling it upwards and shooting a pointer out from the gauntlet on his arm. Kakyoin raised an eyebrow before spotting a disc flying into the air above him; his eyes widening.

"Hierophant Gr-" Kakyoin attempted to call out before stopping altogether as electricity travelled into the tentacle around Kaminari, and consequently, into his right arm; his stand reeling back in pain and allowing its captor to aim at the disc above Kakyoin, his whole body thrashing in pain as electricity travelled across his body.

"Got him!" Kaminari cheered, shoulder tackling Kakyoin, the stand user fumbling back in confusion.

"Tokoyami, cover me while I set up!" the blond yelled back to his partner whilst reloading his gauntlet.

"I hear you! Go, Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami commanded, the shadowy monster appearing form underneath Tokoyami's cloak, charging towards Kakyoin with two fists ready to fly.

 ** _UBASHAAAAAAAAAAA!_**

Dark Shadow screeched at Kakyoin, striking him with rapid-fire punches. With a final punch to the stomach, he was sent flying back landing between three discs on the ground.

"Perfect! The plan's coming together!" Kaminari grinned firing one more disc into the air above Kakyoin, a sudden revelation occurring to him.

" _These discs… where did they come from? He only fired one off, so how did he… unless he fired them earlier?_ " Kakyoin thought, thinking back to when Kaminari had thrown him off the apartment building. "When that kid was firing those discs at me… was he aiming for the ground behind me and not me the whole time?"

"Looks like I was one step ahead, Kakyoin! I may not be the smartest, but I'll be damned if I lose here!" Kaminari taunted, aiming at the fourth airborne disc, turning the dial on his gauntlet to the 'ALL' setting. "Take this!"

" **NEO TRI-THUNDER**!"

With a blink of an eye, electricity traveled from Kaminari's gauntlet through to all four discs, creating a pyramid of electricity around Kakyoin. The sparks connecting each disc to each other immediately burst with a loud 'bang!' creating a blinding flash of light.

When the light dissipated, a large dust cloud still obscured their vision. Kaminari still stood, along with Tokoyami, the former almost on the verge of losing himself.

"Did… did we win?" Tokoyami asked cautiously, Kaminari reacting with a shrug.

"I-I guess we must have. There's no way he got out of that…" he trailed off, his breath suddenly becoming hitched, hearing footsteps approach the pair.

"Get out of here," Kaminari groaned, biting his own words.

"I must say, that was quite the creative plan," Kakyoin said with genuine praise.

"How?!" Kaminari exclaimed. "How did you get out of that scot-free?!"

Kakyoin chuckled. "Not quite scot-free. I did, in fact, destroy two of the discs behind me with a double emerald splash, but to say it didn't hurt would be a lie," the stand user continued, revealing himself through the smoke.

"But now, it's time to end this!"

"I don't think so! Go Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami exclaimed, taking advantage of the blocked out sunlight surrounding them to strengthen his quirk. Latching on to Tokoyami's body and stretching out his two claws, Dark Shadow wrapped Kakyoin in a blanket of darkness.

"Hmm… Just what are you up to I wonder?"

At that moment, a shadowy head and limb appeared inside the dark dome. "How about… I show you?" Dark Shadow asked him, a fist rapidly approaching his face.

"Damn…! Hierophant Green, Emerald Splash!" Kakyoin exclaimed, eight emeralds missing its target as Dark Shadow fell back into the dark dome itself, separating itself so it would remain unharmed. Without warning, a small projectile was shot into his leg, a finger gun reaching into the Dark Dome, pointing at Kakyoin; ultimately electrifying him, causing Kakyoin to fall to the ground, clutching his chest in pain!

"What you saw was merely a diversion…' Dark Shadow said menacingly, appearing form inside the dome, facing Kakyoin's back.

"Let me end this for you…!" Dark Shadow menacingly spoke, raising a hand above Kakyoin's right shoulder, intending to slam it down and put him out of commission, but not enough to kill.

Kakyoin smirked. "Gotcha."

As Dark Shadow's hand rapidly approached its target, a wall of membranes suddenly appeared in its way, the strike causing a flurry of emeralds to fire directly at Dark Shadow's face; causing the monster to shriek in pain and return to his host in its entirety!

"Dark Shadow, are you okay?!" his host anxiously exclaimed as his quirk reduced in size.

"T-Tokoyami! He's approaching again… a-and I can't use my quirk anymore…!"

"Damn, now we're the ones backed into the corner… Dark Shadow! Attack him one more time so we can escape!"

But before Dark Shadow could advance, eight emeralds shot through the smoke and into Dark Shadow's right claw, causing it to screech in pain. A second wave hit the ground in between the duo as Kaminari spun around to reach out to his partner.-

"He's doing that emerald splash thing again!" Kaminari exclaimed as the smoke dissipated. "How is he-"

"How am I doing it?" Kakyoin asked his opponents. "See for yourself," came the continued sly comment, Hierophant Green's entire body now strung up together across a large portion of the street, covering their every direction.

"Enough talk, we end this now! Take this, Tokoyami, Kaminari! **20 METER RADIUS EMERALD SPLASH**!"

Instinctively, Tokoyami leaped over to Kaminari's side, Dark Shadow peeking from beneath his cloak.

"Dark Shadow, cover us!" his master ordered, the dark being making a small circular covering surrounding the duo.

"Since when could you do that?" Kaminari asked him inquisitively.

Tokoyami shrugged. "Don't know. That was the first time I've ever asked Dark Shadow to do anything of the sort. Speaking of, it looks like we're out of luck. Even with the barrier, Dark is taking heavy fire from every direction. At this rate, we'll be forced to surrender."

Kaminari's face became crestfallen. "Damn… so it's like that, huh?"

"YEP THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING!" Dark Shadow spoke over whatever Tokoyami was going to say. "I CAN'T HOLD IT TOGETHER FOR MUCH LONGER!"

A few seconds passed, the constant bombardment continued, Dark Shadow's growling becoming more audible by the second.

"ENOUGH!" Tokoyami's quirk bellowed deflecting a large wave of emeralds away from the duo, retreating within Tokoyami once more. Kaminari fell to his knees, while Tokoyami's legs wobbled, unable to react to Kakyoin's stand as it formed slime between its hands

"And one more to seal the deal! Emerald…!"

"W-wait! We surrender!" Kaminari said holding out his hands towards Kakyoin and his stand. The slime between the stand's hands disappeared, the stand disappearing into its user.

"As expected… the first win of the day belongs to me," Kakyoin said coolly, slipping on his signature sunglasses.

"Kakyoin wins!"

Jotaro brought the microphone away from his mouth, cracking the faintest smile he could muster.

"Sometimes I wonder if DIO still has a flesh bud on you somewhere…"

Jotaro turned around to face the entirety of class A, all of whom who were still trying to process the battle they witnessed.

"Amazing! To think such a phenomenon exists!" Iida spoke loudly, fixing his glasses.

"Mhm!" Ashido nodded in admiration. "I wonder what the other guys can do," she said, giving the stand users in the room quizzical looks.

"I must say, it's quite interesting seeing such a wide variety of unique abilities in action. What do you think, Jiro?" Yaoyorozu asked her best friend who was still staring at the screen pointing at Kakyoin and Hierophant Green carrying Kaminari and Tokoyami to Recovery Girl's office.

"H-huh? Oh yeah, sure, it was cool…"

"Kaminari," Ashido stated plainly, Jiro turning her head to the pink girl and raising an eyebrow.

"What about him?"

"You were totally staring at him weren't you?"

"Whatever," Jiro stated; scoffing and rolling her eyes at Ashido. "Though, I do think what he did with Dark Shadow and his super move was pretty punk rock," she whispered quietly, gaining an amused giggle out of Yaoyorozu.

" _What a weird bunch of asshats_ ,"Bakugo thought internally. " _I can't get a decent read on any of them, much less what that ginger was going to do throughout the previous match_."

"Okay, so it seems that not only can he fire out solid emeralds, he can send out those membranes from his chest too," Izuku murmured away, scribbling notes into the spare notebook he brought.

Realising Jotaro had turned to face them; the class' noise began to die down quickly. Looking over at the group of stand users in the corner Jotaro nodded at the group, one confidently stepping out of the control room and making their way to ground Alpha.

"Todoroki, Shoji, you're up. Make your way to Ground Alpha, now."

Not a single word was spoken as the two left the room, with another person entering the room.

"Jotaro," Kakyoin greeted Jotaro, standing at his side.

"You really tried didn't you?"

"Of course, I didn't want to lose after all."

Jotaro shook his head. "Not that. You're no good at playing the villain. Comes off as a little forced at times," he told his best friend bluntly, causing Kakyoin to wince.

"Ouch. Tou didn't have to be that honest you know…"

"By the way…"

"Yes?" Kakyoin replied.

"Why are you in your old school uniform?" Jotaro asked the redhead, Kakyoin simply shrugging.

"Honestly? I'm not so sure in hindsight. Perhaps it's because we're at a school? I must've thought it'd be appropriate to look that part."

"You were roleplaying with Tomoko again before we left weren't you?"

Kakyoin's mouth faltered into a frown. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Good grief," Jotaro simply said shaking his head. Looking back up at the screen, Todoroki and Shouji facing their opponent.

"This ought to be interesting… fighting fire with fire."

"Hey, Jotaro, you don't mind if I start things off do you?" a familiar Frenchman asked in anticipation, Jotaro simply passing the microphone to Polnareff, knowing he would complain if he didn't have his way.

"Are our new combatants ready?!"

The three of them on the field nodded, Todoroki and Shoji's opponent got into a strange stance, a half-naked red humanoid with a chicken's beak appearing behind him; catching the two of them off guard despite seeing the stand that was Hierophant Green.

"My name is Mohammad Advol. My mission: to teach you how to work efficiently as a team and wield your quirks effectively."

"Whatever you say, old man. Let's get this over with, Shouji," Todoroki said calmly, Shoji nodding in agreement, shifting into stances of their own.

"Oi, Iggy, you done with your yapping yet?!" a certain Frenchman spoke into Ground Alpha microphone.

…

"Oh sorry about that. Ahem!"

"This battle is about to explode!

FIGHT!"

* * *

Meanwhile…

"Come now!" a catty woman called out from just outside the gates of U.A. Two small bodies latched on to the older woman; one holding her right hand and the other gripping her dress.

"Why can't we go in already?" a small feminine voice asked the older woman.

"We have to wait for a friend of mine first. We haven't seen each other in so long, so I want you two to meet her, okay?"

The girl nodded, the boy simply huffing in annoyance.

"Shino? Is that you?"

The woman who from with the two kids accompanying her looked up, a large grin breaking out on her face.

"Tomoko! It's you it's been too long!" she exclaimed, pulling her old friend into a hug, noticing another person behind her.

"And you… you must be Josuke, right?! It's good to finally meet you, Tomoko's told me so much about you!"

The boy with the pronounced pompadour nodded, rubbing the back of his head; flinching in surprise when Shino wrapped her arms around him, much like she did for his mother. He politely returned the gesture despite the small blush forming on his face.

"And who are these two, Shino?" Tomoko asked, looking at the two of them with a soft smile.

"Well, the one holding onto my dress is my nephew, Kota. The other little person I have with me today goes by the name Eri. She was rescued from the Yakuza recently. She's staying with us until we find her an appropriate place to stay."

Tomoko smiled brightly at the two of them. "Aw~! They're so cute! Nice to meet you!"

"N-nice to meet you," Kota whispered, looking away in embarrassment.

"S-same here!" Eri replied to Tomoko, trying her hardest not to look away.

"You two brought your U.A passes, right?" Shino questioned the two guests, quickly turning around as they pulled out their temporary passes.

"Well, welcome to U.A! Hope you survive the experience!"

* * *

Stat Pages

Magician's Red

Destructive Power: B

Speed: B

Range: C

Durability: B

Precision: B

Developmental Potential: E

A medium ranged, humanoid stand that it's user Mohammad Avdol has had since birth, possessing the ability to create and manipulate fire. As such, the stand working better in open spaces to defeat any opponents. Avdol's stand is also physically powerful, its kicks able to shatter Judgement's with ease, whereas Polnareff's stand, Silver Chariot could not. Magician's Red can generate fire and manipulate said fire freely, Avdol able to melt metallic projectiles in mid-air and melt train tracks.

Avdol has developed a multitude of techniques such as his signature 'Crossfire Hurricane', 'Crossfire Hurricane Variation' and 'Cross Hurricane Special'. Though the naming conventions are similar, their uses are quite different, Crossfire sending out a fiery projectile in the shape of an ankh, Variation allowing Avdol to manipulate the trajectory of the projectile, and Special being a large fiery ankh that covers a large area. Avdol can also use his fire for other means such as his 'Red Bind' to constrict opponents and a life detector that allows Avdol to track living beings and flickers in response to an enemy's presence.

Half-Cold Half-Hot

Power: A

Speed: B

Range: B (C, left side)

Durability: B (C, ")

Precision: B (D, ")

Developmental Potential: D (C, ")

Shoto Todoroki's fusion quirk that is born from a quirk marriage of his father's quirk Hell Flame and his mother's ice quirk, perfectly divided on each side of his body. His right side controls ice, which can drastically reduce the temperature and freeze anything he touches, including entire buildings and streets, being able to create ice walls that reach higher than the tops of the stadium during the Sports Festival. His control over his right side is efficient and precise to the point that he can freeze a certain portion of a target's body to avoid fatally freezing a target.

His left side also allows him to create flames that cover the left side of his body, being able to create short bursts continuous streams of fire. Unfortunately, due to a lack of practice for most of his life, Todoroki lacks the precise control and efficiency in comparison to his right side. He can also use both sides simultaneously, though this puts a large strain on his body.

Dupli-arms

Destructive Power: A

Speed: D

Range: D

Durability: B

Precision: C

Developmental Potential: C

Allows Shoji's tentacles to replicate parts of his body such as his mouth, ears, and eyes. The replicated organs created on his arms such as replicated ears and eyes have sharper hearing and sight respectively, replicated arms have a greater gripping strength and replicated mouths being able to control the range at which his voice can be heard more effectively.

This ability makes Shoji effective at stealth, spying and stakeout missions. In addition, the tentacles that are replicated can make further replicas on top of the first, but in doing so, creates less effective and efficient duplicates.

* * *

I'm not going to lie, I really wanted to wait until I got the 10th review before uploading the chapter, because I'm nit picky like that, but I think it's time I uploaded a new chapter anyway. Thank you to all those who did review, they're very much appreciated. Also, to that one guy who posted 'Silver Chariot Requiem'... I've got a few ideas, but nothing concrete right now. As implied, Kakyoin and Tomoko is a thing, so their dynamic between Joseph and Josuke is... certainly an interesting one.

Generally, something about this chapter doesn't sit right with me, but I still enjoyed writing it anyway, because it's Kakyoin, and Kakyoin is the best. And I'm glad I decided to get Avdol's chapter finished next, writing a long battle scene with Magician's Red was (and is) harder than I imagined.

But regardless, read, review, do what you want, and have a good one.


	3. We Didn't Start The Fire

Jiro couldn't help but not so subtly snicker when Avdol's stand, Magician's Red appeared behind him.

"Something wrong, Kyoka?" Yaoyorozu whispered to her shorter friend.

"Oh, n-nothing, it's just that… I mean look at it! It's a guy with a chicken's head!"

Yaoyorozu looked back at the stand and tilted her head. "Yes, well, as odd as its anatomy is, looks can be deceiving. There's probably more to this stand than you're giving it credit for."

Jiro looked at her raven-haired friend and shook her head. "Oh no, it's just that he looks funny. I'm sure he's strong, but he just looks weird, ya know? Not trying to underestimate him or anything…"

"Good. It's best not to underestimate Avdol's Magician's Red. If this Todoroki kid knows what's good for him, he'd be better off fighting fire with fire."

Jiro blinked, looking around with a confused look strewn across her face. "Uh… did anyone else hear that?"

A large majority of class A shook their heads almost confirming that she was crazy; the question persisting in her head being, 'who just talked'?

"Oi! Earphone chick! Down here," the newcomer spoke in an annoyed tone, Jiro looked down to see a medium-sized Boston terrier dog sitting and looking up at her with tired eyes.

"Uh… what?"

"What do you mean, 'what'? I was talking to you before. I'm not some dumb mutt you know," the dog said.

"Um… Momo? I think that dog just called me a chick…"

"Yes, I'm talking to you! What gives, never seen a talking animal before?!"

Yaoyorozu shook her head, interjecting herself into the conversation, trying to hold back her own surprise. "No, no, no, she's shocked that you came out of nowhere and started talking to her is all. In fact, our principal is a talking animal."

"Oh? Is he now? What animal is your principal?" the dog asked curiously, causing Yaoyorozu to blink at the dog in thought.

"I… don't know actually. It's kind of hard to tell."

"Oh… well, I ought to meet him sometime then."

"Oi, Iggy, you done with your yapping yet?!" Polnareff asked him, holding a mic close to his mouth, pulling it away when he realized he spoke into it.

"Are you, Polnareff?" Iggy retorted.

"Shut up!" the Frenchman shot back, putting the mic close to his mouth again.

"This battle is about to explode! FIGHT!"

Back on Ground Alpha, Todoroki made took no chances with Avdol, planting his right hand on the ground, ice forming beneath his palm.

"Let's get this over with," he said monotonously, a giant wave of ice emerging forward and covering his opponent and his stand, causing a certain tape wielder and explosive heroes in training to cringe and sneer respectively in the control room.

Todoroki stood up sliding back into a defensive stance. "Be careful. He looks more formidable than he seems, especially with that 'stand' thing he has."

Shoji nodded, acknowledging his partners' advice, growing an extra arm with an ear sticking out its end. Neither of the heroes in training moved an inch as Shoji scanned the area around in front of them, replica ears, eyes and mouth working in tandem to relay information back to his partner, who simply nodded in acknowledgment every time he spoke.

"It would seem that we've defeated this Avdol person. I can't hear or sense anything that might resemble movements or the like. It's like he disappeared entirely, or worse..."

Todoroki still refused to move regardless of what Shoji was trying to imply, especially when Shoji's head shot up, turning his back to the ice wall as if to desperately find something… or someone.

"W-what's going on? First, there was nothing, and now… Todoroki, to your right!" Shoji exclaimed point to his partner's right, an ankh-shaped pillar of fire rushing towards the duo.

Without hesitation, Todoroki formed a thick rectangular, ice wall that prevented the pillar of fire from advancing further; a small valor could be heard with steam rising to the sky.

"That was a close one," the multi-armed boy mumbled, focusing on the ice wall and not noticing a second projectile of the same shape and size approaching the duo from the opposite side. Todoroki, noticing the blazing ankh approach his partners' back, push Shoji aside and placed another ice wall between them, the ankh dying down against the ice.

"Shoji, have you found where this Avdol guy is?" Todoroki asked, watching their flanks.

"T-thanks Todoroki. And no, I still can't sense him. It's obvious he's attacking, but from where is a different question- wait," Shoji suddenly spoke, interrupting himself. "Do you feel that?"

Todoroki nodded. "Yeah. The temperature is rising… and faster than my right side can cool myself down. The giant ice wall I formed is melting too, that must mean he's-"

 **CRASH!**

Todoroki was abruptly interrupted as the giant ice wall suddenly shattered into millions of tiny pieces, revealing Magician's Red with its leg in the air, setting down slowly on the ground.

"What the hell… did that thing just shatter the entire ice wall with a single kick?!" Shoji exclaimed, taking two steps back, Todoroki replying with a click of the tongue.

 **SKKREEEE!**

With a loud screech, Magician's Red opened his mouth, firing four fireballs at the duo.

 **FOOM!**

"Stand back," Todoroki spoke with an edge of annoyance, raising another small ice wall, blocking the attacks once again. "Dammit… he knows what he's doing," the half quirk boy whispered, seeing a breath vapour emerge from his mouth.

"T-Todoroki! Get down!" Shoji exclaimed, shoving them both down to the ground as the four fireballs melted through the ice wall and flew past the duo.

"What is going on? I thought your ice wall stopped the fireballs…" Shoji remarked, watching Todoroki stand on his feet.

"That's what I thought. It seems that the temperature of the area around us has increased, for whatever reason."

"Hard to believe that he has an ability like that," Shoji remarked, noticing his replicating ears beginning to twitch.

"This is bad… I'm approaching my limit. It seems like he's figured out my weakness right off the bat," Todoroki spoke quietly, steam rising from his body as his left side decreased his body heat.

"Wait. Todoroki… I hear something coming. Be on your guard."

Todoroki nodded, feeling his body steadily return to normal temperature, allowing free movement once more.

"Wait… what is this? My external ears are picking up something coming from… that pothole in the ground," Shoji said, pointing to a small hole in the road that sat close to where they were standing.

"Stand back. There's something traveling through the ground and up towards the hole, but what could it be…?"

As if Avdol or Magician's Red itself were listening, Shoji's question was answered for them, a small flame flickering in the pothole, rapidly growing larger as a small ankh-shaped flame burst forth racing towards them. Without thinking, Shoji's replica ear turned into a fist, swiping away the pillar of fire into the ice, destroying it at the cost of lighting his replicated hand on fire.

"Tch! It hurts more than I expected…"

"Here," Todoroki said, raising his right arm and letting a light sheet of ice cover his hand and take out the fire. "Keep that on there for now. It should be enough to keep away any burns, but won't destroy your first should the ice shatter."

Shoji's eyes widened, cheeks lifting slightly into a smile underneath his mask at the unexpectedly thoughtful gesture.

 **CR-CRACK!**

The two boys looked back towards Magician's Red, the stand simply standing in place, its arms folded with no stand user in sight. The two ice walls that blocked the fire pillars earlier suddenly shattered, the two fiery ankhs that were thought to be destroyed racing towards the duo.

"Todoroki!"

"I got it!" he quickly responded, attempting to put in place another ice wall, his eyes widening with panic when the ice almost immediately melted into water.

"What-" Todoroki began, before being picked by Shoji who broke into an immediate sprint, his lack of speed causing one of the Ankhs to reach his back, charring the back of his clothes with an outline of an Ankh, burning it into his skin.

"Gah…! He got me, and there's one more on the way!"

"Shoji!" Todoroki called out, pointing towards a house untouched by the previous battle. "We'll lose him in there."

"Are you sure?! He's probably expecting us to go there," Shoji said with concern as Todoroki pushed towards the house.

"It's either that or we get burned to death out here. I'm not willing to take any chances," he replied, stumbling into the house, Shoji replaying the same action, slamming the door behind him and backing away from the door; the front windows shattering the pillars of fire reached the house and simply disappeared.

The masked hero in training planted himself against a nearby wall, looking Todoroki's way.

"Have any ideas, Todoroki?"

Todoroki looked at the ceiling in thought. "We go up."

"Up?" Shoji asked curiously.

"Mhm. Up. We get to the roof; we'll be able to get a better view of the ground, with the added bonus of being above our opponent."

Little did they know, their opponent was standing on the very roof of the house, watching their every move the moment Todoroki created the giant ice wall.

"Despite the impressive physical strength of Shoji, that Todoroki boy is fast. I must take him out first… I'm sure he understands how irritating fighting fire with fire can be," Avdol spoke out aloud, Magician's red forming a life detector that slowly flew from the top of the house to the front, entering the house through the shattered window.

"I hear something," Shoji said as the duo quickly, but quietly made their way to the back of the large house. "Someone… no, something entered the house. I don't know what, but it seems to be tracking us; slowly if it's any consolation."

Todoroki nodded in acknowledgment. "Alright. If it's just entered the house, we should be safe… for now," Todoroki finished with a whisper as he led Shoji up the stairs to the second level of the house.

At that moment, Avdol hummed in thought. "So it would seem they're on the second level… do they intend to reach the roof? I suppose that's no matter. If they intend to fight this battle in close quarters, I'll just have to show them the power of Magician's Red."

Pulling down a ladder to the attic, the heroes in training climbed up towards the dark attic.

"How convenient," Todoroki remarked, a small flame emitting from his finger bringing a latch that led to the roof to light. The duo soon found themselves on the roof, spotting an unsuspecting Avdol who sat cross-legged on the edge of the roof, overlooking the street.

The duo looked at each other and silently nodded, quietly creeping towards their target.

"HRK!" Todoroki abruptly grunted, feeling hot streams of fire wrap around his arms, legs, and neck, ultimately constricting his movements entirely.

"Dammit! It's that 'stand' of his! What's worse is that he's somehow figured out my right side controls ice… where most of this fiery rope is spread!"

Shoji spun around on his heel, attempting to save his classmate.

"Its no use," Avdol spoke, gaining the attention of both students. "Shoji, correct? Your friend, Todoroki is trapped by technique Red Bind, and has left you to your own devices," Avdol said, his body unmoving. "I wonder… your quirk can create duplicate arms, correct? And you can create replica organs that attach themselves to those arms. Quite the interesting quirk, but I wonder, what can you do in this situation? Your, quite frankly, superior member of the team is currently incapacitated, and you have little choice in surrendering at this point. As such, I implore you to surrender immediately, or else your friend begins to experience true pain."

Shoji froze in place, unable to decide his next course of action. "If I attack Avdol, his stand will only make Todoroki endure more pain. If I attack the stand, who knows what he'll do when my back is turned, much less knowing the stand that can shoot those fireballs! What do I…"

"You…" Todoroki croaked. "How did you figure it out? Our quirks… how they function. This is our only second time seeing you… so how…?"

Though they couldn't see it, Avdol smirked. "You say that as if to assume this is my second time seeing you," he spoke in amusement.

"W-wait, so you're saying…"

"Yes. When you launched your first impressive ice wall, my stand immediately used the 'Red Bind' technique you're experiencing now to swing me from the street level to the roof we are currently on. Luckily for me, you were so focused on the wall that you didn't think to look at the bigger picture. You stood your ground near the ice wall, ordering your friend to hear over specifically one area of the ground- the street where the ice wall was created."

Avdol slowly brought himself to his feet and turned to look at the duo.

"And because of that, I ordered my stand, Magician's Red to remain behind the ice wall, attacking you with fire in order to reveal your abilities to me; and while you valiantly tried to fight off my stand, that's where I saw it all. Todroki's breathe vapour; ice forming over your body and suddenly disappearing in a cloud of steam; that's when I knew you possessed pyrokinetic abilities! And Shoji's duplicate arms allowing him the ability to grow of extra organs, all revealed to me."

The binds around Todoroki began to tighten, the fire and ice boy slowly losing air.

"Do you surrender?" Avdol said bluntly, waiting for Shoji to answer.

Shoji didn't move. He stared at the ground, a plan beginning to start formulating in his head.

"If this works, we'll get away from him! It'll be painful, but the sacrifice will be worth it!"

Shoji activated his quirk, an additional arm growing on each of his root arms. Shoji moved his left and right hands in front of his chest, giving him a clear view of the membrane between his original and duplicate arms.

"I'm not one to curse, but like Kaminari said… hell no," Shoji spoke bluntly after the long exchange raising his right arm…

And slamming it onto the membrane attaching his original left arm to the duplicate, violently tearing it apart, and catching the spare replica arm before it fell to the ground!

"It hurts… but it'll be worth it! Let me show you…" Shoji trailed off, turning his body around and throwing the replica arm straight towards an unsuspecting Magician's Red!

As if on reflex, Magician's Red opened its mouth to fire off a fireball to incinerate the projectile, but not before the replicated arm flew right into its mouth, choking it, and in effect, Avdol!

"…What a Class A student is capable of!"

Hrk- **SKRRAAAAHHH!**

Magician's Red screeched loudly, letting go of the binds holding down Todoroki as it scrambled to pull out the arm and incinerate it; Todoroki doing the hard work for it as he let rip a large stream of fire at Avdol's stand.

SSSKKKKKREEEEEEK!

Magician's Red howled, disappearing entirely, Avdol kneeing on the rooftop as fire surrounded his body.

"Shoji, you okay? You didn't have to go that far you know," Todoroki spoke; inspecting the ripped membrane as it slowly began to heal itself.

"Thank you for the concern, Todoroki, but I assure you I'm fine," he said with confidence, turning to face Avdol. "Now to deal with you."

"Hmph. Quite impressive, I must say, to put yourself in that much pain in order to save your classmate. A commendable action, but you know you can't do that forever! Magician's Red!"

Avdol called the stand to his side once more, summoning the fiery ropes that had tied down Todoroki, wrapping around Shoji and in turn pinning him to the ground. Avdol took a step towards Todroki.

The dual wielding quirk user fired off a stream of ice, almost immediately melting as Magician's Red increased the surrounding area's temperature. He gritted his teeth in annoyance, opting to push his right side to the limit, ice slowly crawling up his leg as threw out another sheet of ice at Avdol's feet to freeze him in place. Seeing the attack coming towards him Avdol simply ignored it and walked forward, the ice shattering underneath his feet.

"You're insistent on using ice against me. Curious. You can summon fire can you not? Show me. If not, you lose."

"Fine then, old man," Todoroki glowered. "But fair warning, you asked for it."

Thrusting out his left hand, fire ran rampant from his arm and towards Avdol; the fire enveloping him, yet remaining unharmed much to the surprise of Endeavour's son.

"Is that all?" Avdol taunted with a small smirk, the younger boy stopping to look behind him, the ledge stopping to reveal a generous amount of space between the ground and the roof. Firing off more streams of fire, Avdol inched closer, until Todoroki saw an opening, pushing off his right leg, right fist flying towards Avdol's face.

SLAM!

…

"About time," Avdol spoke through the surrounding flames, catching Todoroki's fist in his hand. Realising the punch didn't connect, he leaped away, towards Shoji.

"How? I lit your body on fire and you have no burns on your body or clothes and still managed to catch my punch. How are you not hurt?"

Avdol smirked, the fire surrounding him suddenly dissipating, though the binds around Shoji still remained.

"Control is the key. I've had my stand since birth, and it has served me well. As such, I have significantly more control over my pyrokinetic abilities. I'm sure you can try to figure it out from there."

As much as the half and half quirk user didn't want to admit it, he was bordering on becoming stumped. "Can he somehow deflect my fire? No, that can't be it; it would've disappeared entirely. Maybe he can… he can…"

Todoroki's eyes widened, an idea occurring to him. "Maybe the fire that is surrounding him… isn't mine?"

Avdol smirked, hearing his opponent mumbling to himself. "It would seem you've figured it out… well done. Now let's see you try to counter it!"

Magician's Red, still having a firm grip on the fiery rope around Shoji, fired four fireballs from its mouth, two rushing towards Todoroki and Avdol. Todoroki easily dodged the two fireballs headed his way, the remaining two exploding around Avdol, surrounding himself in Magician's Red's fire once again.

Todoroki squinted in thought. "I don't know how… but somehow he's able to manipulate fire to the point where the flames wrap around his fingers. His control might surpass even my father's… impressive."

The two continued to fight, exchanging blow both physical and of fire, too occupied to notice a pinned down Shoji wriggle an arm out from one of the fiery binds surrounding him. The masked teen glanced down at his left arm, the membrane slowly healing itself and creating two duplicate arms in its place. Slowly moving his right arm, which was being held down by Avdol's Red Bind, Magician's Red moved ever so slightly towards Shoji, the stand and its user too occupied to notice such a small detail.

Shoji's reached over to the binds on his right arm, his teeth clenching against each other, his two outstretched hands recoiling back in pain at the searing heat of the bind, despite it being the same bind that was currently wrapped around his arm.

"What power," he whispered as to not gain his captor's attention. "To be able to control the temperature of not only the individual binds but being able to control the temperature of different parts of the binds… it hinders my plan a little," he said, stopping mid-sentence as his two duplicate hands grabbed the extremely hot segment of the bind, grinding his teeth as he attempted to bear the pain.

"It hurts, but at least it'll be enough to get Todoroki out of the corner he's in," he muttered quietly.

Slowly, he lifted the bind up slowly into the air, the pulling of the bind causing Magician's Red to twitch slightly. Sensing something amiss, Avdol directed a pillar of fire towards Todoroki and looked at Shoji, eyes widening when Shoji jerked his duplicate hands back, Magician's Red caught off guard when its body was forcibly thrown towards Shoji…

"Apologies for stealing this from you, Tokoyami!" Shoji exclaimed, pulling back his three arms, slamming three fists into Magician's Red's cheek, chest and stomach, sending the stand and its user flying off the roof and landing back first onto the street!

The onlookers in the control room broke out into cheers, watching Todoroki pull Shoji to his feet and calming down the fire that spread along his two duplicate arms; the duo began whispering to each other before nodding and splitting up. Avdol pressed a hand to his head, pushing himself off the ground.

"Dammit, I was too careless… though that was quite the shot," he mused, his stand behind him, crossing its arms. "I never expected someone to be daring enough to pull on Magician's Red's binds like that," he continued, watching Shoji leap off the roof of the building to face Avdol… alone.

"Curious. It would seem your friend has run off… did he chicken out?"

Shoji didn't respond, opting to intimidate the stand user as the burnt arms regrew anew along with two new duplicates attached to his right arm.

"Far from it. But your fight is with me now. Don't expect me to go easy…"

"Hmph. I'd want nothing less."

"Then it's settled," Shoji muttered, dashing towards Avdol, opting for an uppercut to the chin, Avdol simply stepping back, narrowly avoiding the third fist as it grazed his nose.

"Try again," came a smug taunt from Avdol. Without hesitation, Shoji shot out his hands towards aiming for his shoulders and arms. Seeing the predictable attack incoming, Avdol swerved to the side, Shoji missing and falling towards the ground, Avdol sticking out his foot in front of his opponents.

Catching himself from falling flat on his face, his duplicate hands slammed into the ground and pushed up, Shoji back on his feet again. Squinting his eyes, he let one of his duplicate arms disappear, two remaining on each side of his body. Repeating the previous motions he made, Shoji attempted to land a grapple on Avdol, this time, Shoji making sure to miss hitting Avdol's foot, the duo facing each other in their original spots.

"Getting desperate are we?"

Shoji didn't react, answering with, "No, I'm not." Pushing off his heels, Shoji charged towards Avdol, attempting to retaliate to his question with an oddly telegraphed right hook with his two fists. The stand user's stance shifted; ready to counter-attack Shoji, instinctively causing Shoji's cheeks to shift up, Shoji smirking underneath his mask.

"You're done now," he spoke quietly as his fists approached his target.

At least, that's what he thought.

Clink!

With a small clashing of concrete and metal, Avdol's eyes snapped down to the ground, noticing a coin on the ground.

"Hmmm? What's this? One of Polnareff's coins?'

Avdol ducked down on one knee picking up the coin, a loud 'slam!' and a small shockwave emanating from a collision of attacks above his head. Shoji couldn't believe it. Todoroki couldn't believe it. Their plan, despite it reeking of obvious desperation, was actually going to be pulled off!

'Was', being the keyword.

Shoji and Todoroki leaped back, their hands and foot respectively burning from the pain of their colliding attacks.

"How did he dodge our attacks with such ease? Was it all because of that coin? No, there has to be more to it than that, but what?" Shoji thought to himself, his brain scrambling to come up with an explanation, much less their next course of action. Standing back up again, Avdol looked straight at Shoji, ready for him to strike, as if he didn't realise he and Todoroki had attacked before. Was he feigning ignorance? Was he the kind of person to suddenly become instantly enamored with shiny objects once they come into view?

Shoji couldn't tell from his facial expression, but somehow, deep down, he knew Avdol had somehow predicted their attacks, feigning ignorance of their attempted assault to get under their skin. Shoji, realising this, kept his composure.

His partner's reaction was another can of worms entirely, to the point where it came off as uncharacteristic to Shoji. Charging towards Avdol's back, Todoroki gritted his teeth as he leaped into the air, gravity pushing him down towards Avdol's back, aiming a kick at Avdol's exposed back. Avdol took a step forward towards Shoji to attack him, the kick missing its target entirely, Avdol ignoring the fact Todoroki swung his leg at him.

Seeing a chance to potentially land a hit, Shoji dashed in his opponent's direction, removing his second arm and cocking back a singular fist, aiming for stand user's face when he noticed Todoroki attempting to land at a sweep at Avdol's feet.

SLAM!

A small shockwave emanated from their attacks landing, though not against their intended target; Magician's Red's foot stamping the ground and preventing Todoroki's foot from hitting Avdol's own and catching Shoji's fist in its hand.

"Tsk, tsk," Avdol clicked his tongue in disappointment, shaking his head when he sensed Todoroki back off, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"If there's one thing I don't appreciate, it's being toyed with, much less being underestimated for your own amusement," Todoroki spoke menacingly, his ice and fire quirk twitching, appearing on his body one second and disappearing the next.

"Both understandable sentiments, after all, I AM exactly doing both of those," he remarked with a hint of disappointment in his voice, commanding his stand to push back Shoji.

"Why? What do you expect us to get out of this if you won't take either of us seriously," Todoroki spoke, returning to a neutral tone and throwing an annoyed glare at Avdol's back.

Avdol, still unmoving, pressed a finger to his head in thought. "What was it that I said earlier, I wonder? Perhaps it was… to look at the bigger picture, was it not?"

"To look at the bigger picture…?" Shoji whispered, recalling the fortune-teller's cryptic words.

"Up," Avdol simply muttered, pointing to the sky above. His opponents followed his finger, looking to the sky with a large, fiery construct catching their eye. A cruciform pillar of fire floated in the air above them

"W-what is that?"

Before Todoroki could get an answer, a tall figure stood over him, Avdol stealthily moved towards Shoji, bending his knees and pulling back a fist.

"That is Magician's Red's life detector! That is what stopped you from winning!" Avdol exclaimed, Shoji's head moving down to see a fist dive into his face, whilst Magician's Red simultaneously grabbed Todoroki by the face, wrapping binds around Todoroki.

"No hesitations!" the stand user bellowed, grabbing Shoji and pushing the dazed boy towards his stand, Magician's Red threw Todoroki violently towards the stumbling masked hero in training. Disappearing to Avdol's side, the stand rushed towards the duo with an outstretched leg…

 **SKRAAAAAAWWWW!**

"Magician's Red does not forgive…!"

Slamming his left leg into the side of the Shoji and Todoroki, the stand quickly reached out to the duo with binds surrounding them, crashing their heads into each other as the binds forced them towards each other. Lifting its right leg up, the humanoid stand slammed it's right leg into the opposite side where their first blow was dealt, lifting them off the ground and slamming a fiery fist into their stomachs.

"Tsk, tsk, yes I am!" Avdol exclaimed, waving his finger twice before turning his back towards the duo as two explosions emanated from Magician's Red's hands. The resulting explosions sent Shoji and Todoroki flying into the air and landing on the ground nearby, their bodies battered and burned by Magician's Red's short, yet unrelenting assault.

Avdol's stand returned to his side once more, the user observing his opponents as they slowly stood to their feet.

"So, gentlemen," Avdol spoke; Magician's Red on standby should the duo try to attack. "Do you surrender?"

The boys knelt on the ground, unable to find the stamina to push them to their feet.

"Todoroki? What do we do?" Shoji whispered using one of his duplicate arms; to which his partner grunted, his head racing to formulate a plan. He looked up towards the small cross-shaped pillar of fire that still loomed over them. After studying the construct for a moment, Todoroki's vapor came together in his head.

"For whatever reason, he's stopped keeping up the temperature so high. He must have a cooldown on such an absurd ability. If so, I'll start with this and take our only chance to win!" he exclaimed in his head, the palm of his left hand hitting the ground, a mountainous pile of ice forming between the combatants. He urgently turned to his partner pointing to the sky.

"That life detector. We need to get rid of that before we even think about how we're going to win. We take it out, we will, at the very least, how a slim chance of coming out on top; so this is what we're going to do…"

Meanwhile, Avdol coloring stood idly by, looking up at the icy construct.

"This again…? I wonder what he intends to do?" He asked aloud, shaking his head as Magician's Red rapidly raised the temperature of the street around them. "No matter I suppose, all they're doing is delaying the inevitable. Magician's Red!"

Avdol commanded his stand to move forward towards the front of the ice mountain, pulling back its right leg a small wave of déjà vu and… dread washing over him. He hesitated for a split second, the life detector picking up no unusual activities from his opponents, simply standing together. Mustering all its strength in its right leg, Magician's Red slammed into the ice wall once again, the ice shattering into millions of pieces to reveal Todoroki being picked up by Shoji.

"DO IT NOW!" Todoroki yelled. Shoji nodded, realizing back quickly and flung Todoroki forward like a spear, hurling the boy towards Avdol!

The stand user's eyes almost bulged out of his head as he called his stand back to his side, charging fireballs from its mouth; being thrown off once again as Todoroki flipped around, his feet facing towards the ground and creating ice that ran along the ground, aiming upwards towards the sky! Avdol's sense of dread returned to him as he watched his opponent's momentum carry him up the icy ramp he had created, flying into the air and snuffing out the flaming life detector with no hesitation.

"W-what?!"

Todoroki switched his attention from the now extinguished pillar of fire to Avdol below him, his right hand creating icicles and sloppily tossing them at his stand, floating a few meters away from Avdol.

"Magician's Red! Destroy those projectiles!" he commanded, Magician's Red launching a seemingly endless barrage of fire, melting and destroying all icy constructs Todoroki was insistent on throwing the stand user's way. A flame suddenly erupted from Todoroki's right side, a short, spear-like weapon materializing in his right hand, Todoroki throwing the weapon instantly towards Magician's Red itself.

"Magician's-"

Before Avdol could recall his stand, the tip of the spear hit Magician's Red's right arm, dispersing itself amongst the arm and lighting it on fire. Consequently, Avdol cursed loudly as the flames appeared on his self and rapidly ate through the clothing cover his right arm.

"S-shit! My arm!" Avdol howled in pain, watching the fire spread further up his arm.

"Magician's Red!" The stand immediately reacted, appearing next to him and wrapping binds around his arm, his fire preventing Todoroki's from spreading further!

Suddenly, a certain masked boy caught the attention of Avdol, a large chunk of ice being catapulted directly toward him and nearing its target. Avdol gritted his teeth, subconsciously ordering his stand to increase the temperatures rapidly, the lethal chunk of ice quickly melted into water, Avdol reaching under the small shower of water and allowing the flames to fizzle out, leaving a charred arm in its wake.

"Tsk! He almost got me with that spear of his… did he always have such precise control over his right side?" Avdol mumbled to himself, shaking his head in turn. "No. Our last encounter on the roof made it clear he had little to no control and yet… perhaps it was subconscious? Regardless if it was, that first move was a step in the right direction," he thought aloud, recalling Shoji throwing Todoroki head first towards Magician's Red.

"Unfortunately… it is not enough," he spoke menacingly, approaching his opponents, huddling together and sliding into fighting stances.

"Gentlemen," Avdol spoke, his eyes closed. "It would seem we are at a crossroads, so I shall give you two choices. The first option is your immediate surrender. The second…" Avdol trailed off, his eyes opening with a small flame flickering on top of his right index finger. "I will give you hell… hell to you!"

Todoroki smirked his right and left sides flaring up with their respective powers, fire, and ice working in tandem with one another. "Then we will just have to give it right back to you."

Without another word spoken, ice ran along the ground, freezing Avdol in place. Without time to worry about the trap, fiery ankhs of a variety of shapes, sizes, and temperature materialized out of thin air, rapidly spinning around Avdol.

Todoroki shot a look of confidence at Shoji. "You know what to do right?"

Shoji nodded, picking him up again "The 'Fastball Special' right? I can do it. The question is… what about your part? I'm heavier than you realize…"

"Just do it," Todoroki said bluntly, Shoji belting his partner straight towards Avdol. Looking back at his partner, his right side flared uncontrollably, feeling his body begin to tear apart from summoning a familiar item in his right hand.

"Only got one shot! One chance to catch!" Todoroki spoke to the wind, thrusting out his left hand behind him, ropes of fire reaching out towards his partner who grabbed on with his duplicated limbs. Todoroki landed, using the momentum to slide along the ice he created upon impact, spinning around the icy circle

"I'll evaporate you…!" Avdol muttered in a low voice, watching the duo closely at their bizarre plan.

As Todoroki created more momentum within his circle, ice formed out of his right hand, carrying him up into the sky with Shoji in tow; a large ankh of fire appearing in the corner of his eye.

Reaching the peak of their airtime, Todoroki spun around on more time, letting go of the binds that were carrying Shoji, tossing his masked partner as hard as he could at the stand user; Shoji preparing to strike the stand user directly with duplicated limbs aflame.

"Eat this!"

"Improvised special move…!"

 **"CROSSFIRE HURRICANE SPECIAL!"**

 **"DUPLICATED METEOR STRIKE!"**

 **CRASH!**

…

Todoroki rushed into the cloud of dust that had been created by their colliding attacks, almost tripping a crouching Shoji, the masked hero in training bordering on hyperventilating.

"Shoji…! You're okay… what happened to Avdol?"

"H-he's over there…" he spoke through endless pants. Todoroki's eyes followed his partner's finger to where he was pointing; freezing in place at the scene he had the unfortunate privilege of seeing. Avdol's body was sprawled out on the ground, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, blood trailing down onto his face with six visible punch mark left all over his body.

"I-is he…" Todoroki stuttered, unable to formulate words as the body disappeared into a sea of flames, dancing around the duo. The fire floated behind them, splitting apart the dust cloud as the figure standing there wagged his finger, the fire returning to his body; Shoji both shocked and relieved at what he was witnessing.

"Mohammad Avdol!"

"Yes. I. AM!" The older man announced with a large smirk on his face.

"But… I thought I…!"

"Do not worry, Shoji. What you hit was nothing but a body double… nothing more nothing less."

Todoroki scoffed. "Is there nothing you can't do with that stand of yours?" he asked, sliding into a fighting stance.

"If there's one thing I must say it can't do, is that it won't allow me to win this fight."

"Oh? Do explain the logic."

"You know… you aren't normally supposed to be looking at for your enemy's well being like that… perhaps you aren't as cold as I first perceived you to be."

"Stop deflecting," Todoroki simply replied, causing Avdol to sigh in response.

"I forfeit the match."

"…I'm sorry?"

"Like I said, I forfeit the match," Avdol restated, walking past the duo, much to their confusion."

"Why?"

"Do you not remember? What I said my mission was?"

Shoji looked down at the ground in thought. "Your mission… wait, you don't mean…!"

"That's right. My mission was to 'teach you how to work efficiently as a team and wield your quirks effectively'. And as it turns out, you both did exactly that."

"So you say," Todoroki said, tempted to roll his eyes at his explanation.

"Then, how exactly did you teach us?" Shoji asked curiously.

"Why, that's elementary my dear Watson: y attacking you in a variety of different ways. In the direct confrontations, you two sought out to attack me in different ways that could cover any potential escapes. In others, you combined your quirks and abilities to overcome the obstacle; as you displayed a minute ago."

Shoji stood on his feet, dusting off his uniform with an almost defeated sigh. "So, that's that, huh? How anti-climactic."

"Agreed."

"Todorkoi and Shoji, win!"

"I take it back," Jiro spoke with an edge of nervousness in her voice. "I was totally wrong."

Iggy snorted and rolled his eyes. "Of course you were."

"Not. Helping."

"Moving right along," Yaoyorozu awkwardly muttered, lightly elbowing her best friends' side. "I have to say, that fight was truly something else. To think that Todoroki could muster up control in such a short amount of time is amazing…"

Bakugo snorted. "Yeah right… it's only because half-and-half was getting desperate. Dumbass almost tore his body apart trying to replicate those ropes from before."

"As crude as his explanations was, he's right," Jotaro said, agreeing with Bakugo's assessment of Todoroki's weapon creation.

"I don't disagree, I suppose I'm trying to say that it's amazing he pulled it off in the first place," Yaoyorozu quickly clarified.

"I agree," came a new and familiar voice, walking into the room with a sleeve burnt off his outfit.

"Avdol! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes!" Polnareff burst into laughter, looking at the Egyptian man's charred outfit. "And talk about a wardrobe malfunction… that kid must've been something else, huh?"

"He was… though he doesn't deserve all the credit. Shoji was quite impressive too, despite the obvious gap in terms of visual flair their quirks possess."

"Yeah, you're totally right!" Hagakure said, bouncing on her heels. "That last attack was so cool! Todoroki threw him down and Shoji hit him with that move where his arms were on fire and everything! It's like that one move… oh, what was it called again, Ojiro?"

The tailed boy raised an eyebrow in thought. "The… Falcon Punch?" he offered.

"Yes! That's the one! That was awesome!"

The stand users watched the class talk amongst themselves, discussing their own plans for the next battle.

"So, who's going next?" Kakyoin asked his friends, the group having trouble deciding who to pick.

"Oi! Avdol! Shouldn't you be getting that arm fixed up with that Recovery Girl person?" Polnareff yelled at his friend, observing the charred arm.

Joseph nodded in agreement. "I think we should have Polnareff go next. He's in desperate need of some training after his run-in with the mafia in Italy…"

"P-Polnareff! I'm fine."

"Nice try, but you're not fooling me!" the Frenchman retorted, dragging Avdol by the opposite arm across to the exit.

"Hey! I'm taking Avdol to the infirmary place- I'll be back!"

"W-wait Polnareff, we need you to stay!" Joseph urged the silver-haired man, watching him race out the control room with Avdol in tow. Sighing in defeat, Joseph turned back to the remaining members of the Stardust Crusaders.

"So… what now?"

Josuke drummed his fingers on the table, leaning on his elbow in boredom.

"Josuke~!"

The high schooler looked up to see Tomoko and Shino, aka Mandalay, approach the table he was currently sitting at, placing a small box of hot chips and dipping sauce in front of him.

"You know, you don't have to do this, Josuke," his mother said sincerely, looking at the two kids nearby, Eri losing herself in a coloring book and Kouta playing with water in a cup, trying his hands at making a variety of shape, occasionally showing it off to her.

"Nah, I'll be fine. You guys haven't talked for so long, so you shouldn't need to burden yourself with those two."

"Aw, you're too kind Josuke!" Shino cooed, her and Tomoko's faces' shifting into soft, thankful smiles. Josuke's face turned red with embarrassment, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck.

"Ah, it's nothing, r-really…"

"Well, should you need us, we'll be at the tables over at the front of the café, okay?"

"Ah, okay then," Josuke quietly replied, the two women quickly going to a nearby table, immediately striking a conversation and leaving Josuke to his own devices. Digging into the chips he sat and ate, his mind blanking, unable to form coherent thoughts. After a few minutes of eating, Josuke's hand hit cardboard, attempting to feel for another chip to eat. Standing with a sigh, he walked off to the nearby bin, turning towards the kids he volunteered to keep an eye on.

"Hey," he called out to them, gaining their attention. "I'm going to the bathroom real quick. Don't do anything dumb, okay?"

The two nodded, watching him turn the corner, proceeding to walk down the hallway. Eri went back to colouring in the picture in her book, while Kouta fiddled with the water in his cup some more. Seconds went past and the silence was starting to kill the water-quirked boy, deciding to tap Eri on the shoulder.

"Hey."

"Hm? What is it?" she asked quietly, looking into his eyes. Immediately breaking eye contact, he looked into the cup and activated his quirk, point the cup towards the girl.

"Look at this," he said with a proud smile, the small amount of water in the cup shifting into a triangular shape, leaving three gaps in the cup. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah… it is," she suddenly said crestfallen, distracting her self with the book, Kouta's insistence to talk to her preventing her from doing so.

"Hey… do you not like it? Is it not good?"

Eri shook her head profusely. "Ah, no, it's just that… you using your quirk reminded me of… you know… mine."

Kouta's eyes widened as he finally got the message. "Oh. Right. Sorry about that…" he trailed off awkwardly, looking at the ground in thought; his head bolting upright with an idea, causing Eri to flinch.

"Hey, Eri."

"Y-yes, Kouta?"

"Do you want to get outta here?"

"W-why?" She asked with quiet concern.

"Well… aren't you bored just sitting here?"

Eri looked away, biting her nails. "I… I guess…"

"Exactly!"

"But… what do we do? Where do we go?"

Kouta smirked. "That's easy. We're going to find Mister Midoriya."

Eri's eyes widened at the suggestion. "Mr. Midoriya? You don't mean… Deku, do you?"

"Yeah, yeah, same guy. So, do you wanna?"

Eri thought for a moment, remembering what Josuke said before. Before she could respond, memories flooded back into her mind, of the sacrifice he and Lemilllion made for her.

"Yeah."

Kouta's eyes widened, not expecting an affirmative response. "O-okay! Let's go! But remember, we have to be very, very quiet. Mandalay might see us if we're not careful."

Leaving their temporary belongings behind, the duo crept towards one of the exits furthest away from where their guardians were seated, tip-toeing their way out of U.A's mostly deserted café area.

"Okay, down here, quickly!"

"W-wait! Where are we going?"

Kouta pointed towards the elevator. "It's basically the middle of the day, so classes will be on, right? All we have to do is got to the level with all the classrooms and then go to 1-A! Then we'll find him."

"Really? That easily?"

Kouta nodded. "Yep! Mandalay told me that Mr. Midoriya was in class 1-A when they came to our place to train," Kouta explained, the elevator doors opening with the duo soon occupying the space. Inside.

"D-do you think it's okay we're going to go see him? You said they have classes…"

Kouta scoffed, giving her a half attempt at a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it. If they have classes, we can just wait for them to finish, then we can go see him."

"But, what about Mandalay? What will she say? And then Josuke too…"

Kouta pressed a finger against her lips. "Eri. Seriously. It'll be fine. We're just going to go see Mr. Midoriya for a little bit we'll be back before you know it."

She nodded as Kouta took his finger off her lips, the boy sending a look of confusion her way. "Hey, Eri? You okay? Your face has gone all red."

The girl pressed her hands to her cheeks, feeling heat radiate from them before they came into direct contact. "U-um, yeah, fine. Just fine!" she spoke with a shakily. Kouta shrugged, turning his back to her when the doors opened.

"Whatever you say."

Taking a few steps out of the elevator, Kouta looked to his left and right, determining what their next move should be. "This way!" He announced, pointing to the left end of the hallway. Eri silently followed his lead, passing by multiple doors before reaching a door that read '1-B' in giant letters, Kouta spotting 1-A's door soon after.

"There it is," Kouta said turning to Eri. "So, what now? I kinda wanna go in but…"

Eri tilted her head. "You're really eager to meet Deku, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," Kouta spoke with an edge of sarcasm, causing Eri to giggle.

"Well, it's just that, you're always so… sad and angry back at home. But whenever someone mentions Deku, you always get so fired up and happy."

Kouta scoffed. "So? What about it?"

Eri softly smiled. "I like that Kouta… the happy and excited Kouta. Whenever I see you happy… I'm happy too. It's kind of weird, don't you think?"

Kouta's face went beat red, unsure how to respond. "W-whatever, l-look, do you want to see him or not?"

Eri's demeanour went back to one of concern and doubt. "I… I think we should wait for him to finish his class. Maybe we should go back…"

"What was that?! You want to see him now?! Alright then!" he proclaimed with great valour, grabbing the door and attempting to slide it open.

 **Click!**

…

"Huh. It's locked."

"So they're not in class then."

"Yeah… I guess," Kouta spoke, standing back from the door. "So what now?"

"Let's go back- wait… Kouta, who's that?" Eri asked, pointing further down the hallway. Kouta looked in the direction his friend was pointing in, a small figure, no taller than either of them was wandering around the coloring.

"I dunno."

"Maybe we should-"

"HEY, YOU!"

Eri flinched hearing the boy's voice raise suddenly. "K-Kouta, wait, you shouldn't just be loud like that…"

"It'll be fine," Kouta said confidently, the small figure Kouta called to running towards the duo. The figure in question was obviously feminine, a look of nervousness strewn across her face, tiny beads of sweat falling on the side of her head.

"Hey. What's up? You look lost," Kouta asked the girl bluntly.

"U-um, I'm looking for daddy… I remember him say he'd be around here somewhere…"

"Well, what's his name?" Kouta asked expectedly, crossing his arms and tapping an index finger on his right arm in wait.

"His name? Daddy's name is…"

…

Meanwhile, a few minutes before, Josuke breathed a sigh of relief, splashing some water on his face in order to wake him up. Really, when his mother told him they'd be visiting U.A, he thought he'd be getting a tour of the place. After all, it's not every day you get to get into the sealed off school so easily, and for free no less. Instead, Josuke resigned himself to the job of babysitting, which didn't really bug Josuke that much. After all, he didn't want to burden his mother or Shino with having to watch over two kids when they hadn't seen each other, much less talked face-to-face in years.

But in hindsight, he wished he hadn't. Now he couldn't even take the tour he wanted and had to show up in his school uniform as per his mother's orders. Something about 'representing your school well' or something to that effect, Josuke couldn't remember what exactly.

"Funnily enough, that's what Kakyoin told me once. His mannerisms must be rubbing off on mom, which is no surprise really, they are a couple after all," he mumbled to himself, drying off his face.

Despite his mother insisting on keeping it a secret from Josuke and her friends (for whatever reason), Josuke was well aware of what his mother and Kakyoin got up to. Their regular dates to Tonio's restaurant Trattoria Trussardi, often purchasing a generous amount of a particular sponge cake from Kamakura and occasionally standing in as a substitute teacher for his mother whenever she fell sick; and somehow, he'd always have the most effective medicines to alleviate whatever sickness she had within 24 hours.

Josuke knew Kakyoin was no doctor, so it came as no surprise to Josuke when he figured out that Kakyoin would often use his position in the Speedwagon to get his hands on whatever medicines he could for either his or his mother's sake.

Walking out of the bathroom, Josuke sighed, walking past the elevator as it closed. Josuke suddenly stopped and looked at the elevator, only to be met with metallic doors, having closed on him already. Shaking his head, he proceeded back to the table he was once sitting at, entering the café area and taking his seat once more. Total silence overcame the area, with the occasional laugh exuded by either Shino or his mother. Josuke sighed and turned around to check on the two kids he'd chosen to babysit.

"Hey, you guys… okay?"

Josuke stared at the empty kid's area, a cup of water sitting on the ground nearby and a colouring book and pencils left neatly on a small table nearby. Taking the time to observe what he was seeing, Josuke gasped, his eyes almost bulging of his head.

"W-what the hell…? Where did they go? They were just here a minute ago!" Josuke hissed through his teeth, annoyed at himself for leaving the two be.

"Dammit! I should've just…! Wait… what's this?" Josuke got down on one knee, his hand searching underneath the table and finding a ripped off All Might piece of fabric.

"Wait a minute… wasn't Kouta wearing an All Might shirt? If he is then maybe…"

Before he could choose his next action, a voice called out to him. "Josuke!"

"Gwuh?!"

Tomoko flinched back in surprise, much like Josuke did. "Ah! Josuke are you okay… wait a minute. Josuke, where are the other two?"

A cold sweat broke out on the side of Josuke's head, trying to figure out a reason to explain their disappearance. "I- uh, I took them to the bathroom! Yeah, just took them now."

Tomoko didn't seem convinced. "Uh-huh. And what are you doing here then? Shouldn't you be waiting outside the bathrooms for them?"

"Uh- yeah, well you see, they told me I didn't need to, they said they'd be able to get back just fine, after all, it is just down the hallway. Anyway, what are you doing here mom?"

Tomoko sighed, not bothering to ask any more questions. "Well, I came to check on you, since the last time I saw you, you looked rather bored. I know you said you didn't want to burden us, but really, we're fine with looking after them if you're finding it difficult."

Josuke profusely shook his head. "No! No, really it's fine mom. In fact, I'll go check on them now. They probably won't be happy, especially Kota, he was really insistent on being left alone you know…"

"Well, just remember Josuke, it's the thought that counts, okay?"

"R-right, well I'll be off!" Josuke exclaimed stepping quickly out of the café area, walking away and summoning Crazy Diamond.

"You know what to do," Josuke whispered, his stand tapping the piece of fabric, beginning to float down towards the hallway and towards the elevator.

"Ah, dammit, it was them! I should've known," he said racing ahead and pressing the up button on an elevator. With the doors opening wide, he jumped in and ran over the buttons to choose from.

"Which one, which one? Ah dammit, I'll take my chances," Josuke grumbled lowly, pressing one of the buttons, the doors closing as soon as the piece of fabric floated in. Feeling the elevator move upwards, the piece of fabric floated in place, moving forward and getting stuck against the metal doors, bursting through when they separated, Josuke taking a left down the hallway and stopping in his tracks.

He wasn't sure if it was just him, but the piece of fabric had seemingly just… disappeared. Out of thin air no less. Running down the hallway, he looked around trying out where it had vanished. Racing mindlessly up to a giant door he swung it open and stuck his head inside, only to be greeted with a class full of looks of curiosity and confusion.

"Hello there. Is something the matter?" a grey, blocky hero asked him. Josuke moving his out of the classroom, slamming it shut and leaning against the wall in annoyance and frustration.

"Dammit Josuke, why would you do something like that? Whatever I need to keep looking… for them."

Josuke slowly finished his sentence as he heard voices near a door that read '1-A' in giant letters.

"My father's name is…"

"W-whoa! What just happened?"

"Huh?! I don't know! The little All Might symbol I thought I ripped off my shirt by accident… it just came back! And it's back there properly now…"

"Wait," a new voice interjected, catching Josuke's attention. "Did it just appear there and become repaired instantly?"

"Yeah, that's what happened…" the masculine voice of the group replied.

Josuke cleared his throat, stopping whatever conversation they were having with each other. "Kouta? Eri? Is that you?"

Kouta leapt out to reveal himself fully, while Eri stuck her head out cautiously to get a view of Josuke.

"Oh thank goodness. Seriously you guys, why did you run off for?! I told you not to do anything dumb! I go to the restroom and then you're just… gone! I had to lie straight to my mom's face because she'd give me whippings like there's no tomorrow if she found out I lost you guys," Josuke ranted, causing Eri to step out fully and bow her head, her long hair obscuring her face.

"I-I'm sorry Josuke… I promise it won't happen again."

"Yeah, yeah whatever. I'm sorry too. I just wanted to see Mr. Midoriya dammit…"

"No way…!" the mysterious owner of the voice spoke out, her hand covering her mouth in shock. Josuke had a similar reaction, his eyes almost falling out of his head in shock instead, a girl, who Josuke seemed to recognise almost immediately.

 _"The two buns, streaks of blonde hair, dark pink short, a black shirt and knee-high tights with spider-web like designs and the butterfly motifs on her shirt and hair… there's no mistaking it, it's…!"_

"Gwah… Uncle Joooosssukkkeeee!" the girl cried with little tears in her eyes, running up to him and wrapping her arms around his waist.

"J-Jolyne?!"

"It's so good to see you uncle Josuke…"

"Wait… Jolyne! If you're here, then that must mean…?"

"Yeah… Daddy's here too. B-but I can't find him. He told me to stay with Recovery Girl, but I got bored, so I went to find Daddy, but I got lost," she sniffed, wiping her tears against her pants.

"Now he's going to be angry at me…"

"Aww, Jolyne…" Josuke said with a sad sigh. He hated seeing Jolyne sad, especially when Jotaro first initially left him in the care of Josuke, and by proxy Okuyasu and Koichi. "He's not going to be angry at you."

"…You think so?"

Josuke nodded with the brightest smile he could muster. "I know so. He might be disappointed, but Jotaro isn't one to get angry very easily when it comes to you."

"Yeah, I guess so… hey, uncle Josuke? Are Uncle 'Yasu and Uncle Koichi here too?"

Josuke's mouth retained his smile hearing Jolyne refer to Okuyasu and Koichi the way she did. "Nah. They're back at Morioh. It's just me today."

Her smile faltered for a split second, an awkward cough from behind the two distracting Josuke from the frown.

"So, you going to introduce us?"

Josuke rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright. Jolyne, this is Eri and Kouta. Eri and Kouta, this is Jolyne."

"Nice to meet you," Jolyne spoke softly, both Eri and Kouta repeating the action.

"So," Josuke started, "I believe it's time we headed back, don't you think?"

"Awww, but I wanna see Mr. Midoriya!"

Eri nodded in agreement with Kouta's sentiments. "I want to see him too."

"And I want to find Daddy," Jolyne said looking at Josuke with puppy eyes.

"Oh no, that isn't going to work on me."

"Daddy said he was teaching 1-A! He has to be here somewhere!" Jolyne said, causing Eri and Kouta's jaws to hit the floor in realization.

"Deku- I mean, M-Mr. Midoriya is in class 1-A too! That means we're going to the same place! If we find Mr. Midoriya, we find Jolyne's dad!" Eri exclaimed happily.

"See Uncle Josuke? We all want to go to the same place! Will you help us please?" Jolyne begged, attempting to trap him with the puppy dog eyes.

…Except this time, with the other two assisting her, both Eri and Kouta giving him the puppy dog eyes gaze, despite how ridiculous and out of place it was on Kouta. Josuke sighed in defeat and shook his head.

"You guys… what am I going to do with you? Oh well. To class 1-A we go!" Josuke exclaimed enthusiastically, pumping one arm in the air, the other three repeating the action with even more energetic cries of approval.

…

"So… any idea where to start looking?"

"W-wait, why me?!"

Kakyoin sighed. "Because, Mr. Joestar, you're the only one of us who hasn't participated yet."

"S-so?! Polnareff hasn't gone yet, neither has Iggy!" Joseph stuttered pointing at Iggy across the room.

"Yes, we are aware, but Polnareff dragged Avdol off to get his arm fixed and Iggy's being snuggled by that pink, alien looking girl."

Joseph looked at Iggy as the pink girl, Mina Ashido as he recalled, pressed Iggy's face against her assets, smirking and sticking a tongue out at Sero, Kaminari, and Mineta.

"Gah. I suppose I have no choice now, do I?" Joseph asked, Kakyoin shaking his head. Joseph made eye contact with Jotaro and nodded, leaving the control room for Ground Alpha.

"Yaoyorozu. Jiro. You're next. Make your way to Ground Alpha, now."

The two girls nodded, leaving the room quickly, following after Joseph. "Good luck. You'll need all you can get against the old man…" 

* * *

Mei's stat pages:

 **Hermit Purple**

Destructive Power: D

Speed: C

Durability: C

Precision: A

Developmental Potential: E

HERMIT PURPLE! Man, I love saying that! Back on track, Hermit Purple is the stand of Joseph Joestar. This stand manifests as multiple, purple, thorn-covered vines that emerge specifically from his hands. Despite the vines attacking power relatively weak, the vines themselves are strong enough to support his own weight and long enough to bind someone completely; allowing for some snazzy vine zipping… kinda like Spider-Man!

Oh, and before I forget, Hermit Purple has a plethora of other abilities. Some of these include being able to divine information, such as creating maps of a city in the dirt, creating images of anything he wants to find out by destroying super old cameras and produce live psychic videos on a TV. Mr. Joestar is also able to use his stand to transmit hamon perfectly without losing its effectiveness over long ranges. Thankfully, due to his recent attempts to use consistently hamon again, Mr. Joestar's abilities are more consistent than ever, and he's also become younger! Maybe I should ask him to teach me how to use it, being able to invent whatever I want for as long as possible sounds like the perfect life for me…

 **Creation**

Destructive Power: D

Speed: C

Range: Varies

Durability: B

Precision: A

Developmental Potential: B

The creation quirk is a special one, it is. This quirk allows Momo Yaoyorozu to create anything she wants, as long as she knows the molecular structure of said object. Should she know it by heart, she can manipulate the fat cells in her body to create an object, anything she wants! Though larger objects take much longer to create than smaller ones. In effect, Yaoyorozu requires a certain amount of food to be eaten every day in order to maintain her body weight and shape, so she doesn't become underweight. Because of this, she is known by some to be quite… gluttonous, despite her upbringing.

Don't tell her I said that though.

 **Earphone Jack**

Destructive Power: E

Speed: C

Range: C

Durability: C

Precision: C

Developmental Potential: A

Earphone Jacks, the quirk of Kyoka Jiro! The earphone jacks that hand fro her earlobes allow for Jiro to insert them (somehow) into all sorts of things, being able to detect everything from small sounds to the heartbeats of people nearby! She can also use them as whips to whack people in the face from up to 6 meters away, being able to shatter huge rocks! Hopefully, my babies can stand up to that kind of force…

Anyway, thanks to amplifiers built by yours truly, Jiro is able to connect her earphones into these special devices on her forearms to create a powerful sound wave from her heartbeat, which can violently shatter the ground beneath her! Quite nifty if I do say so myself~!

Holy chuckles and knuckles that was long. I never expected to get over 10k for one chapter. Avdol is super hard to write a decently long battle for honestly. Also, putting Todoroki with Shoji of all people really put me in a corner for writing something that doesn't drag, but I didn't want to retroactively change anything in the previous chapter to fix that.

Good grief.

Some responses to some reviews:

reven228: Perhaps we will. Perhaps -silverchariotrequiem- we will see something like that.

MagatsuIza: Yes, well, I wanted to initially pair Polnareff with her, but I decided against it after watching a certain shitpost of a video involving Okuyasu and Kakyoin in early Part 4.

Also, yes, I will be getting around to rewriting the previous stat pages to line up with the new 'Mei's Stat Pages' I've decided to implement in this chapter.

And remember to please review the story! I'm also open to constructive criticism. After all, I want to make this story be as best as I can…. That said, I need to get some sleep, so do yourselves a favour and get some, and have a damn good one.


	4. Joker

"Of course we get the old man," Jiro sighed with disdain seeing Joseph Joestar enter the arena and stand across from them. The old man looked around and whistled in surprise.

"Kakyoin and Avdol really didn't hold back did they…?" the old Joestar mumbled before his eyes settled on the two young students mumbling amongst themselves.

"I don't know Kyoka… I don't think we need to go so hard on the old man. I'm surprised Mr. Kujo even asked him to come along… what if we accidentally do something fatal to him?" Yaoyorozu spoke with a worried tone, Jiro shaking her head.

"I'm sure there's a reason for Mr. Kujo brought him along, so lets not underestimate him," Jiro spoke firmly, surprising her partner.

"You… you're really getting into this, aren't you Jiro? Is there any particular reason?" Yaoyorozu spoke with a soft smile. The shorter girl's eyes snapped on to her partner's.

"W-well, there's not really a particular reason to speak of, I just want to get this over with you know?" she spoke with a tiny blush creeping up on her cheeks, fearing she'd already seen through her; Yaoyorozu thankfully not taking notice. "Anyway, it looks like our opponent is getting a little impatient, Momo."

Yaoyorozu followed where Jiro's eyes were pointing, laying her eyes on their opponent. She watched in bewilderment as the old man's left hand torqued and bent in ways a normal hand wouldn't. The old man looked up, catching the duo before him staring with a mix of confused, curious and disgusted looks on their faces- mostly disgust from Jiro.

"Ah, so I see you two have completed your little mother's meeting, yes? I suppose introductions are in order, if the trend is to be followed. My name is Joseph Joestar, and I shall be your opponent for today. Please don't disappoint me; I have anticipated this day for a while, and as such, have high expectations of the two of you."

The duo remained silent, moving into fighting stances. Joseph stopped fiddling with his prosthetic left hand, letting his stand, Hermit Purple snake around his body, out of sight from the two heroes of training before him. In a stroke of bad luck, a shriek of feedback emanated from the Ground Alpha's sound systems, the trio flinching at the loud sound, causing Joseph to lose concentration, letting Hermit Purple slip out for a split second before pulling it back into hiding.

Yaoyorozu, being the observant one she was, noticed this. "Hm? What was that?"

"Something up, Momo?" Jiro asked, refocusing her gaze on her opponent.

"I thought I saw something... off. Like there's something that shouldn't be there."

"You mean on the old man? If the other two are anything to go by, it's probably his stand. Did you see anything distinguishable like colour, shape? Cause I sure as hell didn't see anything."

Yaoyorozu hummed in thought. "It was… purple. It looked like string, but had thorns on it… wait a minute."

" _Alright! Get ready fighters!"_ a french voice over the intercoms spoke excitedly, causing his opponent to groan in annoyance.

"Polnareff… of course you'd be back already."

"String with thorns… why does that remind me of- Shiozaki! From class B! Kyoka, his stand, it's-"

" _Try 'em or die!"_

Once Polnareff's voice had erupted over the intercom once more, Yaoyorozu shut her mouth and concentrated on her opponent. The duo stared down the old man, Joseph staring down the heroes in training with a small frown in his face, taking a step towards them.

Jiro suddenly tensed up, her earphone jacks slowly stretching down her back, out of Joseph's line of sight.

"Momo," Jiro whispered. "I got an idea. Next time I say 'now', I want you to attack him at close range. This guy obviously has experience, so we need to catch off guard somehow"

Yaoyorozu hummed softly, hoping her partner heard her.

Jiro's jacks continued to stretch down her back, clicking into an amplifier in her legs. Hearing the audible _click_ , Jiro activated the amplifiers on her legs, sending a large wave of sound towards Joseph, the old man stopping in place to place his hands on his ears.

"OH SHIT! That hurts…!"

Seeing her chance, she formed a metal staff, sitting comfortably in her hands. Yaoyorozu inched forward towards Joseph, careful to stay out of range of Jiro's attack. Noticing her partner was in position, Jiro stopped her amplifiers from producing sound waves.

"NOW!" Jiro exclaimed.

Leaping at the opening Jiro had created, Yaoyorozu charged towards Joseph, attempting to strike him overhead with her staff. Fortunately for Joseph, Yaoyorozu's the initial lengthy start up of her attack allowed him to sidestep out of the way of the incoming attack, a loud _clang_ emerging from the ground, the attack missing entirely.

"Ah..! I missed!"

"Dammit," Jiro spoke in an annoyed whisper, clicking her tongue.

"You know, I have to admit, for a bunch of amateurs, that was quite the opening attack," Joseph said applauding the young women. "But now it's my turn. I hope you're ready… young ladies."

Stamping his foot on the ground for dramatic flair, Joseph balled his fist and thrust out his left hand, electrical sparks appearing around his hand and arm. "Hermit Purple!" Joseph exclaimed, a aloud _whirring_ sound could be heard as the duo braced for an attack.

…But nothing happened.

The two young women stared at Joseph as he stood idly by, his arm still pushed out as if he waited for something to happen.

"Uh… that's it?" Jiro asked blinking in confusion, her classmates watching on, expressing the same concern.

"What the hell is he doing? He's talking himself up and then he's not going to deliver? What a disappointment," Kaminari shrugged, taking a poke at Joseph's backfired display of intimidation; the rest of the class barring a few responding with nods and whispers.

"Um… Kaminari?" a voice spoke up behind him, the electric blond coming face to face with Koji Koda.

"Oh? What's up Koda?" he asked the quiet boy, following a finger that pointed back at the screen.

"I think there's more to this than you realize… look there," he said quietly the blond following the boy's instructions. Kaminari uttered a small gasp.

"Oh no…"

Joseph cracked a smile, the voices of the class being overheard on the systems intercoms without anyone realizing, much to the surprise of Polnareff and the disdain of Jotaro. Snatching the microphone from Polnareff with his stand, Jotaro quickly deactivated it.

"Good grief," he muttered, glancing at Polnareff. The Frenchman rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled, quickly turning into apologies when Jotaro hardened his gaze into a glare.

"My apologies, Jotaro…"

"Good grief…"

Joseph's smile got wider by the second, disturbing both Yaoyorozu and Jiro.

"W-wait, what am I doing? He's open! I need to attack," Yaoyorozu spoke, monologuing with herself and strengthening her grip on the metal staff.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, young lady," Joseph said seriously. Ignoring his warning, she made a shield on her right arm and began charging at

"Well, at least someone was paying attention," Joseph said seeing Jiro stay in place. Before the Yaoyorozu could react, Jiro's eyes snapped onto something on the ground snaking towards her best friend, matching the description of what Yaoyorozu said before; a purple string like object with thorns on it.

"W-wait! Momo stop! You're being lured into a trap!"

Jiros pleas fell on deaf ears, and before Yaoyorozu realized what was going on, it was too late; she suddenly slipped and fell to the ground, her back impacting the ground with an audible _thud_. Before she could register the pain the impact had caused, she felt something tug at her both of her ankles, the raven-haired girl realizing she was being mercilessly dragged along the ground. Yaoyorozu balled her fists, trying to make something- _anything_ to stop Joseph in his tracks. Joseph smirked, jerking his right hand up, causing Hermit Purple to pull Yaoyorozu into the air, tossing her back towards Jiro.

Jiro's eyes almost shot out of her skull as Yaoyorozu's body flew towards her. Quickly composing herself as best she could, she held out her hands to catch her partner; underestimating the force behind Joseph's throw. Yaoyorozu slammed into Jiro's body, sending the two tumbling towards the ground. Jiro closed her eyes, bracing herself as she fell back…

…Only to find that she'd landed on something rather soft. Jiro opened her eyes, and quickly sat up noticing a large white object beneath Jiro and Yaoyorozu, a pillow to be precise.

Pushing herself to her feet, she leant out a hand to her partner who quickly accepted the helpful gesture. "You okay?" Jiro asked whilst dusting off Yaoyorozu's back.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thankfully I was able to get this pillow out in time… somehow," she said sheepishly. "Anyway, back to the problem at hand." Yaoyorozu spun around, Jiro following suit as their eyes met Joseph's.

"I have to say, that was very quick thinking on your part to create that pillow. If only you were as fast at attacking as you are at creating items…"

Yaoyorozu winced at the jab from Joseph, Jiro growling and balling her fists.

"You two also lack something else, a common trend amongst your other peers as I've noticed- awareness. Had you not been so distracted by my strange posing, you surely would've noticed my successful attempt to grab you."

Jiro gritted her teeth, connecting her earphone jacks to two small gauntlets on her arms. Crossing her arms to form an 'X' she sent waves of sound amplified by the gauntlets, Joseph safely moving out of the way.

"Too telegraphed! Try again!" Joseph taunted. The old man rushed towards the duo once Jiro stopped her relentless soundwave attack. Summoning Hermit Purple once more, Joseph directed the vines towards Yaoyorozu and Jiro. Jiro aimed her jacks at the vines, throwing them out in wide arc akin to a whip in an attempt to keep them away from her. Likewise, Yaoyorozu held up her shield in front of her in wait for the approaching vines. Once in range, she swiped her shield at the vines, a successful attack making them flinch back, Joseph gritting in pain as the force of the attack recoiled back to his body; only made worse as Jiro's earphone jacks slapped away his vines.

Fortunately for Joseph they weren't his targets and of course, he had a contingency plan. Without warning, the vines sprung back into action, curving around both heroes in training, latching onto the corners of the large pillow behind them. Joseph suddenly pulled back his arm, forcing Hermit Purple to retract, taking the pillow with it. The large projectile caught them both by surprise as they found themselves stuck to the pillow, being flung towards Joseph.

Seeing his chance to do damage, Joseph extended his right first as far back as he could, waiting for his chance to strike. The projectile flew into his range, Joseph punching a small gap the middle of the pillow between the two bodies. The pillow suddenly lost moment, the two girls not lucky enough to have this happen, landing face first into the ground and skidding against the road.

Most of the onlookers in the Ground Alpha control room cringed watching Jiro and Yaoyorozu's faces scratching up against the road.

"Oh no… I can't watch," Hagakure groaned her eyes covering where her face would presumably be. Ashido's hands covered her mouth to mask her shock looking over at Hagakure and Asui.

"Do… do you think they're okay?"

Hagakure shrugged, not giving a vocal answer. Asui placed a finger to her chin in thought. "I'd say so. They're tough, so they'll get back up- but to say that the attack they endured won't leave any marks? That'd be a dishonest of me…"

Back on the ground, Joseph retracted his stand and kicked the pillow away. Turning back to his opponents, Joseph was greeted to an unsurprising sight. Yaoyorozu and Jiro groaned as they pushed themselves back up to their feet.

"Ah… come on! Not even a single decent hit?! You're kidding!" Jiro muttered under her breath, Yaoyorozu next to her placing a hand on her shoulder. "We need to run." Yaoyrozu immediately bolted away from Joseph, leaving Jiro to her own devices.

The punk rock girl squeaked in surprise, quickly following after her partner, Seeing Joseph begin to do the same right after. "Run? But why?!"

"Because Mr. Joestar has us outsmarted us on more than one occasion and almost has us beat to a pulp. It's clear he has the upper hand on us and I would rather opt for the option of retreat if it means we're to beat him," she explained, leaving Jiro at a loss for words, realising she was more right than she like to admit; wincing a little as the wind blowing against her stung the small open wounds on her face.

"Besides… I have a plan." Activating her quirk, Matryoshka dolls appeared from her arms and stomach. "Now… don't look back!" she exclaimed as she threw the three dolls in Joseph direction, Jiro adhering to her request almost immediately.

Joseph blinked in confusion as the dolls flew in his direction. The dolls suddenly cracked open, revealing a single grey tube in each. Recognising the object, he attempted to look away, but was too late. A loud explosive sound resonated in the air between the duo and Joseph resulting in a large flash, blinding Joseph.

"W-what the hell?! Where did that come from?"

Yaoyorozu tapped Jiro on the shoulder, the latter currently watching Joseph rub his eyes in pain from the blast, much to her amusement. "Come on Kyoka, we need to get out of here before he recovers! Come on!" she exclaimed anxiously, Jiro silently nodding, following her partner as she made a sharp right turn towards a house that Todoroki and Shoji had fought Avdol on only minutes before.

"Okay, so what's this plan of yours, Momo?"

Yaoyorozu responded with silence, creating thin string from her arms. Once she had created a enough to make a small pile, along with other other items such as Jiro's amplifiers- much to the said girl's surprise, she turned to her partner.

"Alright Kyoka, here is the plan…"

Meanwhile out on the street, Joseph was still struggling with the flash grenade, needlessly rubbing his eyes to ease the pain and make the effects shorter- not that rubbing his eyes would achieve either. The effects of the flash soon wore off Joseph finding himself alone in the street.

"Hrm. So they ran- or perhaps, if they put they their bought time to good use- a tactical retreat," Joseph spoke to himself while rubbing his chin. "Of course, that won't last long and sure they know that, so in order to maximise time… they must've ran to the furthest house from my position as possible; but which one, I wonder?" Coming to the conclusion that the duos base of operations would be in a house that wasn't close by, Joseph crouched to the ground, a simple act that the Stardust Crusaders knew all too well of.

"Ah, I see, so he's doing that, huh? Hey Jotaro, are you sure the old man isn't senile enough to use that?"

Some of class A whipped their heads in shock at the seemingly insensitive comment coming from Polnareff.

"Not to be presumptuous, but isn't a comment like that a little insensitive?" Asui wondered aloud, many of the students silently nodding in agreement.

"He's not, and to be quite frank, it's a valid concern," Jotaro spoke defending Polnareff. "Up until a year ago, that man, Joseph Joestar was a little more than an empty husk, losing himself and becoming senile years before. As such, his stands' abilities became inconsistent at best. Then, by some luck of the draw, a miracle occurred and something within him snapped. Whether it was the aftermath of meeting his long lost son, or him realizing he willingly adopted a baby stand user I'm know sure, and neither is he."

Asui and the other students barring a few looked at Jotaro in bewilderment, confused at how someone could revert from total senility to normalcy within a year.

"Even though he's changed as much as he has, his stand abilities have improved in some areas, but in others… not so much. If you wonder what I mean, keep your eyes on the screen."

Joseph walked up the street in search for a specific spot in the street. "Hrm… I know it was around here somewhere… Ah! Here we go," Joseph said with rising hope in his voice. "Now, if I'm not mistaken, this is the same spot where Avdol was fighting those other two students… what were their names again? Todoroki and… Shoji. Yes, that's it- and there's the spot!" Joseph muttered triumphantly, a small pothole in the road revealing itself.

"This is the spot where Avdol used his Crossfire Hurricane Variation to surprise attack his opponents… and there seems to be a fair deal of ash and rubble in here too!"

Picking up the rubble and ash, Joseph carefully carried the pile to the side of the street. "Hermit Purple!" Joseph exclaimed, the stand appearing from his right hand, curling around to surround the rubble and ash he held safely in his hands. Tossing it on the ground, the dust fell into place, forming a map of Ground Alpha with two crosses nearby. "Heh… how convenient. They're just across the street," Joseph mused, standing up and turning towards the house in question.

Jiro leapt back away from the blinds in shock seeing Joseph seemingly lock eyes with her- or so she thought. Whether or not he did, it was obvious to her that Joseph knew of their location _somehow_ though she didn't bother to guess why. What was more concerning to her is that their trap they had devised hadn't been completed! Running up stairs, she found Yaoyorozu typing away at a small computer that she'd found at the house- a necessary asset as she claimed.

"Momo! He's coming. I don't know how, but he's found us!"

Yaoyorozu's eyes widened at the revelation. "What?! Already? But I haven't fully linked everything up properly!"

"So you're saying that we don't have a chance for your plan to succeed at all? If so, I can distract him for a little while."

Yaoyorozu shook her head profusely. "No! No, it's okay. Everything is working, well at least I think it is, I just wanted to run a second test, you know- ah! He's here!"

Jiro's head shot up in alarm. "Well, we going to go or what?" she asked, trying her best to keep her cool.

"Follow me!" Jiro's partner order, leading her up to a small hatch in the roof, a set of stairs falling down. Quickly climbing up, the duo sat down, Yaoyorozu at the computer, and Jiro next to a set of audio extension cables that lead down the hatch they came up and out to different areas of the house.

"Okay, you know what to do, right?"

Jiro hummed and nodded in response, both girls watching the computer screen intensely.

Joseph wrapped his hand around the door and pulled it back to reveal an empty house. Joseph carefully set a foot down on the ground an audible _snap_ emanated beneath his foot. Before he could register the string snapping, an amplifier that was planted above the ceiling above the entrance activated and began to bear down sound waves on Joseph.

Joseph pressed his hands against his ears on reflex gritting his teeth finding himself barely able to move. "S-son of a bitch! Not this again!" he cried, trying to raise his hand to summon Hermit Purple- all without the waves bursting his eardrums. "I got one shot! H-Hermit Purple!"

Joseph summoned his stand from his right hand, shooting it up into the air and wrapping it around the amplifier. Pulling down as hard as he could on his stand, the vines tightened around the amplifier, cracking the outer shell before quickly destroying it, freeing Joseph from the relentless soundwave attack. Joseph felt short on breath as he leant against the door frame to rest a little.

"Damn… that really knocked the wind out of me… I better not take any more hits from those amplifiers for a little while. And while I'm at it," Joseph trailed off before walking over a nearby bookshelf, filled with generic looking books. Looking to the top he separated a variety of small books to reveal a small camera pointed in the direction of the entrance. Joseph picked it up with his prosthetic hand, crushing it to pieces.

"Hmph. I'm not _that_ senile that I'm not going to notice something that obvious Joseph grumbled.

"Crap! He got one of the cameras! Now what?"

Yaoyorozu placed a hand on Jiiro's shoulder in reassurance. "We'll be fine. We've got plenty of others to catch him off guard with, we've just got to bide our time. After all, there was never a time limit given for how long we can drag this out, right?"

Jiro sweat dropped. "So that's your plan? To sit back up here and time him out?"

"…Well, more or less considering we didn't get enough to complete set up. There were some other things I would've liked to do that would've made this more than just a bore fest for everyone else- but enough about that…"

Jiro nodded, realizing they were getting off topic. Focusing back on the computer screen, she stretch her ear jacks next to the extension cords in wait for their target to appear.

Joseph sighed, carefully walking towards a nearby staircase before spotting a string along the bottom of the staircase opting to retreat instead. Walking back outside, Joseph looked at the top of the house.

"Huh. What a coincidence. This the same house that Avdol fought on… but if that's the case then... that's it!" Suddenly making a connection in his head, he summoned Hermit Purple again, using the vines to hoist him up to the roof of the house, his target revealing itself to him upon landing. "This is it! Using this hatch I can find the other two through this back entrance and I can finally get this… done and over with?"

Joseph attempted to open the hatch leading to what he assumed was an attic, but was in fact, a fake that had been planted only just recently, a sheet suddenly flying into the air across from him as Jiro emerged from the real hatch, revealing herself to him.

"Ha! You really fell for that silly trick, old man? You must be going senile," she taunted, Joseph not particularly happy at the jab she made, Joseph summoning Hermit Purple.

"Tsk! Learn to respect your elders!" Joseph barked at Jiro.

"Oh? Did I hurt a nerve?"

Joseph cocked back his hand to throw Hermit Purple towards Jiro, stopping his action mid swing so as she pointed two amplifiers that fit on her arms like arm cannons. Connecting her earphone jacks into the back of them, she smirked as Joseph panicked; his attempt to step back and jump off the roof being thwarted by Yaoyorozu as she snuck up behind him and latched her arms around Joseph's neck.

"Kyoka! Start it now!"

"Alright!" Jiro responded to the barked order. Using the time Yaoyorozu bought distracting Joseph, Jiro began focusing her heartbeat into her earphone jacks; the amplifier began to vibrate slowly, becoming more rapid before the amplifiers reached capacity.

"I'm ready Momo!"

Yaoyorozu nodded, letting go of Joseph's neck and kicking off his back andfalling off the roof. The force of the kick sent Joseph stumbling towards Jiro.

"OH SHIT!" Joseph exclaimed in panic sending Hermit Purple towards Jiro to bind her, the bass player pointing the amplifiers down towards the roof instead towards Joseph.

"This is it old man! **HEARBEAT FLASH!"**

Sending her heartbeat into the amplifiers, the produced soundwaves shot down into the house broke through its every level, quickly reaching its foundations. The pure force of the soundwave split apart, pillars of soundwaves erupting from through the house and the ground around Jiro. The resulting attack forced the house to collapse in on itself.

"OH MY GOD! What twist!" Joseph screamed, losing his foot and falling to his knees and struggling to push back up.

Jiro rushed off the roof, landing with an awkward roll. A little smile of amusement grew on her face hearing Joseph cry out in surprise, seemingly falling down along with the house.

 **CRASH!**

The house, now completely destroyed, kicked up a large dust cloud that surrounded the area around the house, Jiro being caught in the cloud of dust. Placing a hand over her mouth to prevent breathing in dirt or small pieces of debris.

"Oh for love of… come on!" Jiro groaned in annoyance.

"You know… this brings back some not so pleasant memories, resorting kicking up a little storm like this," a deep voice spoke from within the cloud, Jiro leaping out of the way as piece of wooden debris was flung her way.

"Kyoka!"

Yaoyorozu caught up with her partner, pulling the dazed girl out from the dust cloud and back towards the street. "Kyoka, are you alright?" Yayorozu exclaimed, receiving a silent nod in reply. "Oh thanks goodness. Luckily I found you when I did, else he would've been able to keep us separated with that little dust cloud of his."

Jiro stood on her feet with Yayorozu's help. "He… he what? That old man started that sandstorm?"

Yaoyorozu nodded. "Yeah. I don't know how, but something like that shouldn't normally happen- at least something of that magnitude. Fortunately, we're out in the open, so we're just as vulnerable as he is."

"Hmmm… so you managed to find each other. Oh, well. Such a shame, you know? I didn't want to have to resort to this…"

The onlooking Stardust Crusaders began bar Jotaro began to sweat realizing what Joseph had planned.

"Tsk… dammit old man," Jotaro grumbled.

The pair of 1-A students froze in their conversation, a strikingly familiar voice referring to none other than the duo. The two spun around to see Joseph Joestar standing idly by, his head tilted so the front of his hat cover his eyes; giving off a _menacing_ aura.

"B-but how? How did he get past us without use seeing him…?" Yaoyorozu spoke, a shiver running down her spine.

"Well, I suppose I've fooled around for long enough don't you think? Don't answer that, actually. It's time for me to get serious, after all, your next lines will be 'w-where the hell did you get that?'" Joseph trailed off menacingly, his right hand reaching behind his back.

Jiro and Yaoyorozu ceased breathing for a split second as Joseph brought his hand from out behind his back to reveal a tommy gun!

"…To you."

"W-where the hell did you get that?!" they both exclaimed. Jiro would've been more shocked that Yaoyorozu dropped a curse if it wasn't for the fact that the duo had bolted from their resting spot of the side of the street and diving head first into the windows of the nearest house to avoid fire from Joseph's tommy gun.

"What the hell does this guy think he's doing?! Is he trying to kill us?!" Jiro exclaimed in panic, looking to Yaoyorozu to help her confidence in the situation.

"I… I think he's trying to intimidate us! These 'bullets' he's shooting at us aren't bullets at all, they're… air soft bullets! No wonder we didn't get hurt on our way down here," Yaoyaorozu groaned, still remaining prone as Joseph continued to rain down fire on the duo. Without thinking, Yaoyorozu crawled towards the dented door for cover, activating her quirk.

Meanwhile, Joseph continued to rain fire down on the duo, trapping them in the house they had retreated to. With a sound of two clicks from the Tommy gun, Joseph lifted his finger off the trigger, making a relentless dash for the house door.

"I'm not letting you get away this time!" Joseph exclaimed, wildly swinging the butt of the Tommy gun at the house, breaking it down to reveal a sight Joseph least expected.

"Fire!" Jiro exclaimed to Yaoyorozu, the latter pressing a button on a large cannon, aimed at Joseph's face; the old man, falling to floor as fast he could on reflex.

"OH MY GOD-"

 **BOOM!**

The cannon fired off the single round shot, the projectile grazing Joseph's nose as he fell back. With quick thinking, Joseph summoned Hermit Purple from his right, grabbing the round shot. Quickly correcting his posture, Joseph pulled back on the round shot, tossing back at the cannon destroying Yaoyorozu's creation and breaking the already destroyed entrance even further.

Jiro and Yaoyorozu leaped out of the front window of the house, putting their second plan into action. With Joseph distracted, Jiro attacked Joseph with her amplified heartbeat once again, slowing down his nearly halting his movements entirely. Joseph instinctively summoned Hermit Purple again to grab Jiro's arms, his attack being stopped as Yaoyorozu appeared behind Joseph, pulling up and back on a large pile of rope, constricting Joseph's movements entirely.

"W-what the?! Where did that come from?!" Joseph exclaimed in surprise as the duo dragged Joseph out to the street.

"Well, while you were busy showing off and shooting us down with that Tommy gun of yours, I created this rope you're currently binded in, assuming our first plan failed to work as planned."

"Yeah, and you could've killed me!" Joseph exclaimed, Yaoyorozu profusely apologising to him. Jiro frowned, feeling a tinge of regret for thinking of such a plan.

"Regardless, I'd say this battle is a wrap." Jiro said straight-faced, while Yaoyrozu giggled at her pun.

Joseph tilted his head down and smirked. "Are you sure about that… young lady?"

"Huh?"

Before either of them could decipher the meaning behind Joseph's comment, Yaoyorozu began to panic. "K-Kyoka! Behind you!" But it was too late! In the space of a second, two metal objects suddenly struck Jiro, the string connecting them wrapping around Jiro's body.

Joseph, noticing Yaoyorozu's hand still holding the rope, took the chance to escape, breathing in and focusing as much hamon energy as he could in that moment!

"OVERDRIVE!" Joseph exclaimed, his hamon travelling out through his body and through the rope tying him down, ultimate leading to one end of the rope; the one Yaoyorozu was holding.

"AH!" the raven-haired girl cried out in pain, a large amount of hamon travelling through her body. Watching the girl stumble back in pain, Joseph freed himself from the loosened rope.

"Phew! That was a close one. Thankfully I decided to bring those clackers back again. Honestly, I'm surprised they even worked like I hoped, especially since neither of you saw me throw them out when you decided to almost kill me," Joseph spoke shooting a glare at Jiro, then at Yaoyorozu.

"Seriously, I can't believe you two! Trying to almost blast my head clean off!" Joseph bellowed, comically swinging his arms at both of them in frustration.

"You know…"

"Hrm?"

"If it's any consolation, the round shot wouldn't have been able to kill you."

"What are you- oh I see what this is," Joseph spoke, realizing what Jiro was attempting to do. "You know, young lady, I think I have discovered another- how do I put this… a fatal flaw, so to speak."

Joseph felt Hermit Purple wrap itself around his body, breathing in to allow hamon to flow through the vines. Quickly turning around, Yaoyorozu had disappeared from where she fell previously and appeared in front of Joseph, raising a second metal staff to strike him on his right side. Guiding Hermit Purple out the sleeves of his shirt the vines wrapped themselves around the metal staff, disarming Yaoyorozu.

"You're both too predictable. Trying to distract me wont work," Joseph said, spinning around to _slam_ the metal staff into Jiro's amplifier on her right arm that she somehow managed to free. The amplifier sparked twice before smoke started to emerge from it.

"I may be old, and I may have been senile at one point, but now? Now, you're being naïve with these shallow tactics as yours if you intend to exploit that weakness… like this."

"Koooooh…"

Yaoyorozu's mind raced into overdrive, instincts getting the better of her logical thinking, summoning a shield and sword, attempting to attack Joseph's back. Rapidly swinging her sword down towards his back, the weapon collided with Joseph's stand that had wrapped itself around Joseph's torso.

"Hmph! I'm one step ahead of you!" Joseph grunted, letting free a large burst of hamon that blew back Yaoyorozu, sending her into a daze. Digging Hermit Purple into the ground, Joseph's stand dug out a small part of the road, pulling it out of the ground, flinging the piece of debris at Yaoyorozu. With little time to react, she held up her arms, her shield absorbing the impact of the piece of solidified tar.

 **CLANG!**

Despite the force being considerably lessened, Yaoyorozu lost her balance, thrusting out a hand to prevent herself from completely falling to the ground. Joseph, refusing to let up the offensive advantage he gained summoned Hermit Purple, aiming for Yaoyorozu's feet. The vines swept the girl off her feet before they wrapped around her again, Joseph swinging her back into position; right next to her partner.

Freeing herself of the clacker trap, Jiro pulled Yaoyorozu up. "Momo! Are you okay?" she asked anxiously, her best friend smiling.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just don't understand why he positioned me here-"

"HERMIT PURPLE!"

"Ah!"

The duo was quickly interrupted as Joseph's stand Hermit Purple warped its vines around the duo, Joseph throwing the duo high into the air. Joseph spun around, dropping his right arm down to the ground, the girls trapped in his vines doing the same. Jiro and Yaoyorozu shut their eyes to brace themselves for impact, only for most of their impact being absorbed by he large pillow Yaoyorozu had created at the start of the match; and yet despite that, the duo groaned in pain, the pillow not enough to soften the impact entirely.

For good measure, Joseph raised them up again, slamming them harder into the pillow, the heroes in training taking the full brunt of the attack; the impact bouncing them back into the air. Joseph pulled Hermit Purple back, jolting Jiro and Yaoyorozu back towards him.

"Koooooh…"

Hamon began to course within Joseph and Hermit Purple, electrifying his trapped opponents. Cocking his prosthetic hand back, he balled his hand into a fist.

"Take this! **SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVERDRIVE**!"

 **SLAM!**

The punch violently collided with the two girls' faces at once, sending them flying back to the ground. Both of the heroes in training groaned in pain, attempting to stand against Joseph once again. Touching her cheek, Jiro groaned in pain, a stinging sensation reaching her cheek.

"Well then, that was somewhat climatic. In fact, I'd say I say this battle is a wrap. Wouldn't you say so, young ladies?"

Jiro gritted her teeth, looking over in Yayorozu's direction. "So that's it? Do we concede?"

The raven-haired girl tilted her head up at her with a small smile. "It's alright, Kyoka. We don't need to concede to anything. Af " Reaching for a small item she dropped on the ground upon falling, she smiled, one that had the confidence and glow of victory.

"When you get the signal, I want you to run and tackle Mr. Joestar to the ground, okay?" she asked Jiro, who nodded, not understanding what signal her best friend was referring to.

"Hrm? What does that young lady think she's doing?" Joseph whispered rubbing his chin.

"My apologies, Mr. Joestar! I didn't want to take such extreme measures, but if it means staying one step ahead of you, then I have no choice," she said apologetically holding up a small stick with a button on it.

"What is she talking about- wait… is that a detonator?!" Joseph panicked and looked down on his body and the ground nearby in an attempt to find any explosive on him, Joseph finally noticing a small blinking device on the side of his left hand.

"Oh no… OH MY GOD!" Joseph exclaimed, pushing out his prosthetic hand as far away from his body as he could, Yaoyorozu pressing the button on the detonator and letting the explosive detonate on his false hand. The explosion tore apart the fabric of the glove covering the hand, exposing the broken parts of his prosthetic left hand.

"SON OF A BITCH! How did you-"

 **CRASH!**

Before he could finish his second question, Joseph was struck down by Jiro, Yaoyorozu quickly following after her to tie up the dazed old man."

"Well? What now, old man? Do you concede?" Jiro smugly asked Joseph, the old man still in shock that his prosthetic had been almost destroyed entirely.

"Fine, fine! Just tell me how you got that explosive on me, how you knew one of my hands was fake and untie me!"

Jiro wanted to keep Joseph tied, but Yaoyorozu untied him regardless. "If you really want to know, I didn't know your hand was prosthetic. I only had a hunch since I had never seen you use your stand with your left hand, only your right. It only really occurred to me that this might be the case when you had separated Jiro and I, that you used your stand from your right hand when it would have been more efficient to use your left due to Kyoka's positioning. Also, I managed to attach that explosive on your hand the moment before you struck us in the face just a few minutes ago."

"Tsk. A little overboard I say. Still hurts so damn much."

Joseph slowly nodded. "Well, I guess you're right. I suppose I went overboard just a little. Then again, that assumption you made was quite the dangerous one and made for quite the gamble young lady, so I think it's safe to say I'm not the only who went overboard in that fight."

Yaoyorozu blushed in embarrassment and bowed, profusely apologising to him. "Y-you're right Mr. Joestar, my apologies...!"

"Ah, please don't keep apologising."

" _Jiro and Yaoyorozu, win!"_

"By the way old man, I need to know… how did you manage to smuggle that Tommy gun full of airsoft bullets into the school? Also, how did you create that little dust storm for yours?"

Joseph chuckled. "Ah, of course you'd like to know that, wouldn't you?"

* * *

"We've been on that level already!"

"No we haven't! We just came here from this level here!"

Josuke slapped his face and groaned. It had only been 20 minutes (or so he thought) and an argument had already broken out between three of the kids. Or rather, an argument broke out between Kota and Jolyne, with Eri nervously giving her input in an attempt to encourage the duo to stop their arguing. Of course, despite the girl's best intentions her words only served to keep their argument alive.

Kota threw his arms up into the air, unable to believe what he was hearing. "What are you talking about?! That button is going to take us to the level with all the classrooms on it! Where we found you!"

Jolyne folded her arms and pouted. "No, we won't! You're just remembering things wrong!"

Kota growled in annoyance, wanting to smack his head against the wall at Jolyne's insistence that she was right.

Josuke crossed his arms and gave Kota and Jolyne the most intimidating stare he could. "If you two don't stop arguing, we're calling this all off. We won't look for either this Midoriya kid, or Jotaro. Have I made myself clear enough?"

Jolyne's jaw dropped, tears threatening to escape her eyes. "You… you wouldn't do that would you, Uncle Josuke?"

"Tsk! Oh yeah?! Make me, shit-hair!"

A vein suddenly popped a vein upon hearing Kota's insult. His face fell into a dark, menacing stare. "Hm? Did you say something Kota? Would you like to repeat that?"

Kota's eyes shot open in panic as a pink, muscular being suddenly manifested next to Josuke, picking the boy up by the back of his shirt. Eri and Jolyne looked on in awe as Kota waved his arms and legs in panic begging Josuke to be put down back on his feet.

"Okay, okay, you're right! You're right, and I'm sorry, I'll stop arguing. Just put me down dammit!" Josuke raised an eyebrow at the boy's demand. "Please! Please put me down."

Josuke's stand, Crazy Diamond lowered the boy to the ground in an orderly fashion before disappearing from sight behind Josuke. Kota pushed out the creases on his shirt with a small sigh of frustration. His head quickly shot up hearing a small giggle to his right, Jolyne unable to help herself after watching Kota's little incident. Kota sent a glare Jolyne's way, Jolyne finding it difficult to supress her giggles further.

Josuke sighed and tapped Jolyne shoulder. "Don't aggravate him, Jolyne," Josuke spoke with a hint of disappointment. The girl looked down at the ground and frowned, mustering up the courage to meet Kota's eyes. "I'm sorry," she said plainly and as quickly as possible. Kota's first reaction was to roll his eyes, but decided against it.

"It's okay… just don't do it again, yeah?"

"Yeah, okay."

Josuke smiled at the two kids. "Well, now that we've settled that, it's time to keep searching! I do have an idea of where to go, but we might have to pass by mom again… great," Josuke sighed, knowing what was coming for him if Tomoko or Shino had realized they had gone and ran off.

Pressing a button to head back to the ground floor, the group of four walked out of the elevator and jogged back to the café.

"Josuke!"

"Oh crud, she's calling! At least our timing was good. Quickly, get back in and act natural, okay?" he told the three of them in a panicked voice. Rushing into the back of the café area first, Josuke sat down on a table next to the kids area. Kota slid down next to where his cup of water was before, Eri plopping down next to him, swiftly colouring in a picture of All Might.

"Josuke?"

"Uh, yeah mom?"

"Shino is going to take me on a tour of U.A. Would you like to come?"

Josuke shook his head. "Nah, I think I'll stay. Who's going to take care of these guys if I go?" Josuke spoke as sincerely as possible, pointing at the two kids sitting at the table in the kids area.

"Oh? I was under the impression wanted you two a tour of the place. Do you two want to stay?" Shino asked curiously, the duo silently nodding at their guardian. "Well, I suppose if you two want to stay and Josuke wants to stay too, then I don't mind."

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" Tomoko asked one more time, Josuke giving his mom the same answer.

"Nah mom it's fine. Seriously, you two go have your tour, we can wait," he told them sincerely. Tomoko and Shino both gave Josuke grateful smiles, giving their thanks before walking off to one of the elevators the group of four had come down earlier.

After a minute of two, Josuke stood up and stretched his arms. "Well, I think it's time we get going shall we- wait a minute. Where's Jolyne!"

"Oh!" Eri began, shooting her head up in Josuke's direction. "She said she had to-"

"I'M HERE!" a familiar voice exclaimed, Jolyne said loudly, rushing into the café.

"Jolyne! Thank goodness you're here. Honestly, I'm not going to ask where you went, we need to book it out of here as soon as possible before Mom and Ms. Sosaki get back! Let's go!" Josuke exclaimed, quickly walking out of the café with the three kids in tow. Walking out of the front entrance of the main building, Josuke folded out a brochure that contained a large map of the school ground inside.

Squatting down, Josuke held out the map for the trio of kids to look at. "How convenient. So! If I remember correctly, mom said to me on the way here that some classes don't have to take place in just the classrooms, but in a bunch of other places too. So, I think we should start off here," Josuke said, pointing at one of the bildings on the map. "From there, we can move our way up and hopefully find Midoriya and Jotaro."

"But what if we don't find them?" Eri asked quietly, the other two nodding, curious as to what they should do.

"What should we do? That's… a good question. If we can't find them, I guess we'll have to head back to the café then. I mean, if they're not anywhere here, then where else could they be? And Class 1-A's door was locked too," Josuke concluded before trailing. Shaking his head, Josuke stood up and stuffed the map in his pocket. "We'll just have to play it by ear. If we find them, we'll say hi and leave quickly- unless Jotaro's okay with it. If we don't… well, I'm sure you get the idea by now."

The trio nodded, trudging alongside Josuke as the trio soon came across the first building on the map. The trio tiptoed towards the entrance, the sounds of a large group of people reaching their ears. Peaking their heads into the building, the group watched on as a class of 20 trained on various platforms made of clay pillars; some practicing close quarters combat, ranged combat, whilst others practiced with a mixture of both. Down on the ground two students in particular were training with their quirks, one of them cocking back a fist.

"Relax Kendo! One more time, I got this!" the metallic skinned boy exclaimed, ignoring the strawberry blondes' warnings.

 **SLAM!**

The boy's fist hit the middle of the small pillar, and instead of smashing to pieces like he intended, the pillar broke off from the ground and was sent flying to the entrance to the gymnasium- right were Josuke was standing!

"Oh my god! Quick, move!" Josuke panicked, pulling back all three out from the door way and summoning his stand.

 **DORA!**

 **CRASH!**

Crazy Diamond swiftly swiped away the piece of clay from the pillar. The remaining debris hit the doorway, causing it to fly off its hinges hitting the opposite wall.

"Oh for the love of… what did I say would happen Tetsutetsu?"

"…That I'd break something?"

"Exactly!" Kendo cried gripping the bridge of her nose in frustration.

Using the crash as a distraction, Josuke signalled for the kids to keep moving to the next building, Josuke following closely behind them. Reaching the next gymnasium, Josuke attempted to open the door- his attempts obviously in vein.

"Two down, two to go," Josuke spoke, giving the trio the most sure-of-himself smile he could, the kids shooting back similar looks. The group quickly moved between the remaining gymnasiums, failing to find any sign of Class 1-A or Jotaro anywhere, much to the dismay of the dynamic trio. Josuke sighed, trying his best to conjure up words to soften the blow of disappointment, but came up blank. On the brink of giving up, Josuke opened his mouth to speak-

" _OH MY GOD-"_

 **BOOM!**

The loud explosive sound startled the group, Josuke twisting his head around towards the source of the voice and the sound, incredulously staring towards a large metal wall with tall buildings exceeding the walls' height. "No way…"

The trio of kids looked at him with curious stares.

"U-uncle Josuke? Is there something wrong?"

"I… I think…"

"You think… what? Tell us already!" Kota demanded, Eri nodding, also wanting to know what Josuke was so shocked at. Without prior warning, Josuke started to walk in the direction before sprinting off without the trio, leaving them in the dust.

"W-wait Mr. Josuke!" Eri called out to the pompadour haired boy, Jolyne and Kota rushing to meet up with him along side Eri.

" _That voice… there's no way it could be him… could it?"_ Josuke thought, a million thoughts running into overdrive in his head. _"Could it be a coincidence that Jotaro and that man being here in the same place… no it couldn't be- but wait. Kakyoin said he had to go on a secret mission with the Speedwagon foundation and if Jotaro, Kakyoin and my dad are here…"_

Josuke shook his head. "No way. There's no way that he's here. I'm thinking too deep into it- oof!" Josuke fell and groaned in pain after running into another person as they exited a small mobile medical wing.

"Oh? Well this is certainly quite the surprise," an oddly familiar voice spoke above him, Josuke's eyes shooting up to meet the man in front of him. Josuke blinked, part of him not wanting to believe who he was seeing. The man Heavy coat with short sleeves, with one being completely burnt and bandages wrapped around where the sleeve would be. The man's two scars on his chin, and a signature headband confirmed to Josuke that he wasn't hallucinating.

"…Avdol? Y-you're here?!"

"Yes, I am! Well, at least I'm pretty sure I am."

"MR. AVDOL!" another, more feminie voice exclaimed for behind Josuke, running up to the Egyptian man and hugging his leg. "I can't believe you're here Mr. Avdol!"

The older man chuckled and rubbed Jolyne's hair. "It's very nice to see you Jolyne… though as much as I am pleased to see you, I don't think _she_ is," Avdol said looking back through the open door. Jolyne's eyes widened as she hid behind Avdol's leg.

"Young lady! Where have you been? I told you to stay put with me and then you go running off! What do you have to say for yourself?!"

Jolyne looked down in shame. Avdol chuckled and rubbed her hair. "Don't you think you're being a little harsh on the poor girl, Recovery Girl? Taking away one's freedom of curiosity at such a young age isn't the best idea. Just my two cents."

"Yes Mr. Avdol I understand that, but I was told to keep a strictly close eye on her, so she must remain here until further notice."

"Chiyo, I think I agree with Avdol, you're being a little to hard on the poor girl," a new voice interjected, surprising both Jolyne and Josuke. Jolyne poked her head out from behind the taller man's leg, rushing inside with a wide grin on her face. Josuke peaked into the room to match a face to the voice, his jaw almost dropping to the floor.

"Nana! You're here too?! I'm so happy," the little girl cooed, wrapping her little arms around the older woman. Josuke blinked in confusion, trying to comprehend how the woman sitting on the chair across from where he was standing had gotten so… young after Jotaro had shown him a picture of her before leaving Morioh with his father a year ago.

"Aw, who's a good girl? You are, yes you are~!"

Josuke looked to the right of the woman that was hugging Jolyne to see a boy his age with a large tail and a female U.A school uniform seemingly floating in the air playing with a small baby

"Bwaaah~!" the baby responded, her hands reaching for the fur on the end of the boy's tail. The child brought him back memories of events one year ago- ones of meeting his father for the first time.

" _N-no way… as if I needed more confirmation!"_

The older blonde woman put Jolyne down, the small girl pointing in Josuke's direction. "Nana! Look! Look who's here too!" The blonde woman looked up and met eyes with Josuke, the former blinking in confusion and the latter giving the blonde an awkward smile and wave.

"…Josuke."

"Umm… Hi, Mrs. Joestar."

Chiyo gasped a little upon seeing Josuke. "Oh my… he's just as you described. What convenient timing…"

"Guh!" Josuke grunted in surprise as Josuke stumbled into the room with a literal push of motivation from Avdol. "Mr. Avdol!" Josuke hissed. "What are you doing?!"

"Fret not, Josuke. I won't speak of this to Mister Joestar or anyone else until the time is ripe. But for now, you should go and spend time with family while you can." Josuke would've felt better about his promise not to mention his presence to the his father or the Stardust Crusaders had he not had to come face to face with Mrs. Joestarfor the first time.

"R-right… thanks Avdol… I guess."

The Egyptian man gave him a solid nod and walked off away from the mobile medical wing. Josuke audibly gulped, unsure of what to say.

"Oh, oh! Nana, you should meet some of my friends that I made! Come in, come in!" she insisted, pulling them into the med bay, thankfully stalling for Josuke. Chiyo's mouth broke open, unable to believe that the Jolyne had already gotten through to Eri, enough to consider them friends. Most outside a select few U.A, and even less outside the school could do that at all. The presence of the boy however, didn't surprise her. In Mandalay's last report, she claimed Eri and Kota had become quick friends after meeting at U.A's cultural festival only one week before.

Once Mrs. Joestar, or Suzie, as she went by most people finished her small talk conversations with Eri and Kota, she looked at Josuke with an unreadable expression.

Josuke sighed.

" _Time to face the music…"  
_

* * *

Mei's Stat Pages:

 **Silver Chariot**

Destructive Power: B

Speed: A

Range: C

Durability: B

Precision: B

Developmental Potential: D

This guy… why does he remind me so much of Iida? Must be the hand waving. Back on topic, Silver Chariot is the battle-dedicated close range stand of the Frenchman himself, Jean Pierre Polnareff… what a cool name! Names aside, Polnareff's stand Silver Chariot an extremely fast stand, with enough power to destroy rocks instantly and precision that has built up over years of training on Polnareff's own; being able to slice a bullet or skewer a bunch of coins on his stand's sword the very instant they line up.

Silver Chariot is also donned in special armour, one that protects Polnareff from extra damage at the cost of slowing the stand down. When it sheds its armour, it becomes more invulnerable, but also increases his already borderline insane speed for speed that the human eye can't normally perceive properly, creating multiple afterimages as it moves.

 **Hardening**

Destructive Power: B

Speed: C

Range: D

Durability: A

Precision: C

Developmental Potential: B

The quirk belonging to Eijiro Kirishima! This quirk allows him to harden any part of his body. This means he is well protected against not just physical attacks, but also against heat, shockwaves, explosions and even several tones of metal falling on him (making him a less preferable test subject). He also recently gained a new ability known as 'Red Riot: Unbreakable', making his body extremely hard and rough, making him essentially invulnerable to most kinds of attacks. Actually, maybe I should make some sort of extra padding for the guy if he does rescue missions… OH! I know I could even add some of my babies to it, maybe an extra…

 **Acid**

Destructive Power: B

Speed: B

Range: C

Durability: C

Precision: C

Developmental Potential: A

Though I'm not sure how you'd pull it off, you better not get this girl angry! Mina Ashido's quirk lets her create corrosive liquid from her skin- and thanks to extensive quirk training when she was younger, can control the acid's solubility and viscosity levels. Seriously, I should know, she accidentally destroyed one of my babies with her acid… poor thing.

Getting back on track, like I implied, her acid can pretty much destroy any solid object, making her quirk effective in not just it's offensive capabilities, but also improving Ashido's manoeuvrability, being able to climb up objects and slide around on the ground. It also has strong defensive options, Ashido capable of creating a large acid barrier that can destroy most, if not all projectiles it touches. If mistakes are made while using her quirk, then she could potentially melt off her own clothes, and worse still, lose resistance to her quirk. That's what you get for destroying my babies…

* * *

The fact that the fic isn't dead is just as surprising as to me as it may be to some others. Honestly, if it wasn't for an invite I got from Ao3 and the 'Revive and Survive' fic I wrote to get myself out of writer's block I had experienced for this fic, the state of the fic would be far worse than it was before I updated with this chapter. As it stands, I've already started writing chapter 5 and planning for chapter 6, so please do look forward to their (eventual) release.

A special thanks to those who have reviewed the fic so far, your positive input is sincerely appreciated on my end. Also, if anyone has any constructive criticism to give, don't hesitate to do so, as I want the fic in general to read well for as many as possible. Also, I've made some changes to the chapter titles to reflect what I've done on Ao3. I also totally lied when I said the stat page rewrites were coming with this chapter, since I'm running low on time to get this update out in time.

With that said, I'm going off to work with basically no sleep. Hopefully you all have a better day than I'll have.

-ThePrimePhoenix


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